


Empty Dreamer

by Nhitori



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Agender Chara, Agender Frisk, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Intersex Chara
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:32:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5800918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nhitori/pseuds/Nhitori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> No one's ever really lost, they are caught inside your heart, if you garden them and water them they make you who you are. </i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> Chara doesn't know what it means to have friends,<br/>What it means to be happy.<br/>Maybe they can be taught.</p><p>But then, maybe they'd be better off not knowing;<br/>They are just a monster in a world of rotten humans.<br/>A monster who, try as they might, just can't seem to save anybody.</p><p>  <i>I am an anarchist, an antichrist, an asterisk.</i><br/><i>Say what you will, I am the kill, the only thing that keeps you real. Truly safe from me, and real.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of an odd au, Chara does eventually fall down, but the story is more about what happens before... And after, their time in the underground.

“If you’re cuter, monsters won’t hit you as hard…”

~~~~~  
There was a time before they fell down.

A time before they went to the edge of the town they lived in and ran, ran far towards the mountain until suddenly, they reached the ground below. Far, far below, a fall that overcompensated for its purposeful nature. There was never the shock of tripping and finding that the ground was much further away; it simply fell away into a searing pain quickly and easily, after an eternity of toppling with only one goal in mind. When Chara fell, they were not cushioned. Before Chara, there were no yellow flowers in the underground.

Ah, but this was before that.

Quite a while before that.

Chara Dreemurr…

What was their name before they got that one? Well, they couldn’t remember anymore. Any family name belonged to no real family of theirs, after all. A mother who only tried as far as she could throw the child and a father who cared; cared about causing harm, that is. Chara didn’t want to think about them too much. Dreemurr was much more fitting.

Back then, they weren’t a very well-liked child, at first. They didn’t go to preschool, and before they’d even entered kindergarten, they were in an accident. An accident which left them with the burden of beginning school in a particularly rotten state, through no fault of their own. The details… Were difficult to remember, not out of a lack of impact, but out of the pain of thinking that such a thing had happened to them.

Their mother had thrown boiling water at them.

They didn’t blame her. Of course not. They’d want to throw boiling water at somebody like themself too. Somebody like Chara… 

They would never think much more on it, however. Not the mistake they made to get such a brutal punishment, not the regret and apologies that they heard, but didn’t understand because the sincerity was simply not there. No, they didn’t want to think about it any more than they had to… Yet the memory plagued them, only for the impact it had on the remainder of their life.

It was because of that, that they were always being picked on when they first started school. Children could be told not to bully, children could be told to accept people’s differences, but little kids never could grasp general concepts. Chara had a weird face. Of course they’d point it out and find it strange and consider it a reason that they would never be a friend. Chara would never be anybody’s friend, because they were just the one to take out all the pent-up-aggression that adults only assumed that children didn’t have. A kid could be a good kid, a kid could swear to never bully anybody, but if one person picked a punching bag it became a classwide affair.

They hated it. And, they had learned even at that age, all their life, that if they wanted something to happen they would absolutely need to do it for themself. Nobody had ever done anything for them before and nobody ever would; they didn’t even get an allowance, but that was okay. Nobody would miss spare change, taken a little bit at a time, over a long period… And it wasn’t so difficult to get at their mother’s purse once a week to scrounge up a few dimes and quarters for their piggybank. They’d used this trick in the past, to get enough money for the occasional chocolate bar from the convenience store on the corner, but now they had a different goal in mind for that store.

Ten dollars… That should be enough, right? They were sacrificing ten whole chocolate bars, anyway, so if the universe cared about them even one little bit it would be enough to buy what they wanted to get. Saturday afternoon, while their mom was too busy drinking to notice their absence, they ran off to that corner and dashed inside, waving to the cashier. They’d been coming to this store on the corner for such a long time now, and they’d say they were friends with the owner if not for the fact they knew it was silly to think they could ever have a friend.

“Chara! Long time no see! I usually get you in here every other week buying chocolate. What’s been the holdup?” The cashier shouted out to them, and they shrugged a bit as they made their way over to the section they needed to be in.

“I started school,” They frowned as they looked at the prices. Four dollars for one palette of eyeshadow? Maybe they didn’t have quite as strong a grasp on the economy as they thought. It was a shock they understood money at all at their age, so it wasn’t surprising that they’d misinterpret the price of certain things, “So I need to make myself look nice, or else nobody will like me. It’s been three months now since the school year started and everyone’s just hated me. It’s because of my face. Who would ever like somebody with a face like mine?”

“That’s not true at all! I like you just fine, and you’ve never needed makeup before,” She sighed as Chara didn’t respond to this, “Besides, if you wore makeup people might not even like you. Boys who wear makeup run into a lot of trouble, after all. It could just get people to make fun of you even more, and wouldn’t that be awful?”

“Oh. Well I’m not a boy,” They said blankly, looking at a bunch of different foundations till they found one that looked right, “I don’t know… What I am. Mom and Dad say that I’m a thing. I just know that makeup makes people look good. I have to look good. Everyone says my face makes me look like an ugly monster… I guess that they’re right but it’s still mean.”

“I see…” The cashier frowned, then walked over and grabbed a few things, handing them to Chara, “I think these would look nice on you. And, you’ll need concealer if you’re trying to hide your scars. Wear lots of blush and you’ll look just darling. I’ll buy it for you, okay?” She smiled warmly, looking down at the confused child with a look that showed she understood how kids could be, understood that maybe it really _wasn’t_ possible for Chara to make friends looking like that, as shallow as it was.

“Wha… Really?” They asked in awe, staring up at her and seeing there a wisdom and kindness unique to adults. Their teacher was often like this, as were the elective teachers and the principal of the school as well. They felt safe around grown-ups who were like this, and that aura had finally found its way to their longtime… acquaintance, as well.

“Of course! Then you can use whatever you saved up to get some chocolate,” She glanced down, noticing the scrapes on Chara’s knees, “Oh, your legs are a wreck… Let’s get you some cute band-aids, too. I’ve never gotten you a birthday present before even though we’ve been friends for a few years, so just think of this as a gift, okay?”

“Are you really sure you’d do this for me?” They asked again, clutching the cosmetics to their chest, and thinking over that word… had she really said that they were friends? Well, that couldn’t be correct, but they were filled with gratitude and amazement, “You’re so nice!”

“I do try,” She chuckled a bit, walking back over to the cash register and snatching a pack of colorful bandaids along the way, starting to ring everything up under her own name, bagging the things before handing them to Chara, “Now you can buy more chocolate!”

They grabbed ten bars and put them up on the counter, dumping the change from their pockets too. The cashier would trust them to have brought enough coins for the number of chocolates, so she rung them up and sent them off without holding them up any longer by taking the time to count the coins in front of them. It was actually a bit more than the actual cost… she’d return the extra coins next time Chara came in.

The way that the owner of the convenience store felt about Chara was something that even she couldn’t exactly explain; it was no good on her conscience to describe it as pity. She’d said they were friends, and maybe that was right. She always chatted with Chara when they came in, but then, she also had no idea until just today that Chara’s gender was such a strange thing, and she’d never before offered to buy anything for them despite it having always been obvious that they could use it; and, she couldn’t say she ever thought about the fact that Chara had been coming in here all by themself since they had to have been two and a half years old. They could walk and talk well, too well for their age. It was clear that they were growing up too fast. But, what could she do about it?

Chara took their time getting home. Running to the store was fun, as was running in general, but walking back was a better course of action. As much as they liked moving fast and exercising, it was always better for them to delay the effort of returning to their home. They didn’t particularly enjoy being at home, after all, so they decided to take a little detour. Just a short one, and not on any bad streets; honestly, the direct route was much more unsafe. Their own neighborhood was cheap and barely even documented, the perfect place for criminals to hide. They’d heard gunshots in the area more times than they could count, though luckily they’d never directly witnessed any crimes. The way that they did go, they came across another child playing hopscotch on the sidewalk in front of a house. An actual house, not a decrepit apartment complex, with an actual sidewalk that was nice enough to draw a hopscotch on.

“Hey!” The girl looked up from her activity, then stood up straight and walked right up to Chara, pulling on their shorts. Despite it being November, it was a nice day. Winter around here rarely got into swing until midway through January, making white Christmases an especially amazing thing, “Are you a big kid??”

“No…” Chara shook their head, looking down at the shorter child then at their own hands, “I’m small. I’m in kindergarten.”

“I am in preschool!” The girl grinned, holding her hands out, with two fingers up on each. Chara noted that even when the girl was up on her tiptoes, they were taller than her by quite a bit. When both of them were standing regularly, the girl’s chin matched up with Chara’s hips. One year’s difference shouldn’t have this much impact, but then again, they were taller than a lot of people in their class, and this girl could be short for her age too, “And I am four years old.”

“My name is Chara. I’m five, going on six,” They introduced themself, then frowned, turning away from her and hiding their face with two hands, closing their eyes before speaking sullenly, “You probably don’t wanna know me.”

“Why not? You’re a big kid, and that’s cool,” She giggled, fixing a ribbon on top of her head, “Do you wanna play house with me? I have a brand new easy-bake oven and toy silverware too… Well technically the oven belongs to my big sister but she’s teaching me how to use it because of the plastic silverware I got, because that’s cool! My sister’s a bigger big kid than you and she’s the bestest person!”

“That’s nice, and I’d like to, but I don’t think that I should,” Chara shook their head, taking a few steps back before turning around completely and walking back in the direction they came, glancing at an alleyway that connected streets. It was funny how just a few blocks could entirely change the mood of a neighborhood… this alley, here, was not intimidating, but anything within three blocks of their apartment complex was nearly a death sentence, “I need to get home…”

“Okay! See you again!” The girl waved as Chara walked away, returning her attention to the lone hopscotch game. In the next five minutes, her sister would come outside to join her, and she’d forget all about the other person she’d tried to get to relieve her loneliness, content as long as there was somebody to play with her. And if Chara hadn’t come along, or if her sister never came outside, she still would have patiently waited for somebody to come and play. It was bound to happen eventually, if she just waited.

Chara, in the meantime, made their way back to their apartment. They took out the key they’d tucked into their shoe and walked into the building. It was one of those places where the landlords cared less about security and maintenance than even the most careless of residents did, so of course there was no lock on the outermost door. Anyone could come in at any time, though they couldn’t make it into individual apartments without a key, and with that in mind, nobody was dumb enough to hide a key under a doormat or anything like that. Anybody who did, got murdered, and the police barely cared. Crime was so common in this neighborhood, and as long as it didn’t spread to the people whose taxes made a better contribution to the police force and whose complaints were likely not to be ignored, it was left as an everyday inconvenience.

It was not a nice place, but they were not a nice person. They didn’t deserve nice things from nice people. Kindness from that cashier was more than enough for one day. A home like their’s… It was where they belonged. So they opened the door with their key, avoided their mother, and went upstairs with their bag from the store, to hide it. Here was where they belonged. A place where they had to hide anything they wanted for themself, a place where they had to avoid their parents, a home that spurred misery…

They supposed some people were just meant to have a bad life, and if that was the case, better them than anybody else, right?

Of course.

They’d _never_ wish harm on another living creature.


	2. Chapter 2

“It has seen some wear.”  
~~

“CHARA!” A voice bellowed through the house, causing the owner of that name to jump. They were in their room (hardly even a room, but it had a bed and a dresser. That was something. They had a hole in one of the walls where they could hide things; they were the only one who knew about it, even when their parents came snooping in their room. They’d been busy hiding the makeup when they’d been shocked half out of their skin by that sound. They groaned, quickly covering their tracks then running downstairs before their father felt the need to shout again.

“There ya are. Took you long enough. It’s dinnertime,” He barked as he swung a bag of takeout up onto the table, pulling out a small container of chicken fingers and tossing it at Chara, who just got hit in the face by it. Their reaction times weren’t exactly great… They picked the box up off the floor quickly, despite it having opened while landing. The five second rule had to still apply to floors that were absolutely filthy, otherwise it wouldn’t be a rule, “Sit down at the table for once, will ya?”

They nodded in compliance and took a seat as far from their mother as possible. She hadn’t moved from that seat in hours; when they left for the convenience store she was sitting there on her sixth glass of brandy, assuring herself repeatedly, just one more. Chara wondered how many more she’d had, and what number this one was. Mother and Father were sharing the variety of other takeout foods, but Chara was limited only to the dish they’d had thrown at them. Even at age five, they knew this; they’d learned it almost as soon as they were eating solid food. They got what they got, and that was it. Enough to keep them from starving, but no more. Nothing interesting.

Well, except the chocolate that they bought for themself. In any case, they knawed on one of the dirtied chicken fingers while their parents got situated on the other end of the table with that greater variety of food. It smelled nice… But they couldn’t have any, so they’d ignore that fact. They shouldn’t want something there was no way they’d get, after all.

“Work was a damn bitch today,” Father sighed roughly, shovelling noodles into his face but speaking through the mouthful, “Three meetings… not the easy kind either, where you can just ignore em all and drink coffee the whole time.”

“Sorry honey,” Mother slurred, picking up a piece of orange chicken with her bare fingers, dirt caked under broken nails and all. When she wasn’t drinking, she was gardening. She used to let Chara help her out, but last month had decided that was just too much time to spend with her grubby child, “That really sucks. You should take a vacation day tomorrow in revenge…”

“I’ll take one on Tuesday. Got tomorrow and Monday off anyway… Speakin of, y’know what Sunday is.”

“Football. We’re out of chips, though,” She shrugged, “Actually, we don’t have much food in the house right now…”

“I’ll go grocery shopping tomorrow,” He leaned over to the counter and grabbed a beer can out of a six pack. He didn’t drink nearly as much as his wife did, but he still had more than two drinks most nights. Once cracking the can he glanced over at Chara, “I’ll take it with me, can help me carry the bags.”

“Me?” They asked, pointing at themself and staring up at their father.

“Yeah, you. What else would I be talkin’ about?” He shook his head, “Idiot…”

“Sorry,” They frowned, taking a few more bites of the chicken, then looking up and speaking softly, hesitating, “If… I’m there anyway… Can I pick out some cereal for breakfast?”

“Well… I GUESS you can,” He rolled his eyes, “You do need something for breakfast… But you can’t get anything brand-name, okay? You need to get the cheap knockoff store brand cereal. And you can’t eat it with milk.”

“Thank you!” They sounded incredibly grateful; despite the restrictions, the very fact that their father would even agree at all meant that he was feeling particularly generous.

“Yeah, yeah. You’ll owe me, though,” He scoffed, pulling down another oversized mouthful of garlic noodles then turning to his wife, “How was your day, anyway?”

“Normal. I drank a lot,” She groaned, leaning over on the table, “I’m probably going straight to bed when we’re done eating…” At these words from their mother, Chara tensed up slightly. They hated those nights when their mother went to sleep early.

“I see,” He nodded, turning to look at Chara again, then turning his attention back to his food.

“Got a phone call from work tellin’ me they found my minifridge,” She said, offhandedly, “I got a warning, though. They aren’t about to fire me there, they know that even if I’m drunk I’m still ten times better than any of the other idiots they got working there…”

“Damn right you are!” Her husband nodded, slamming his fist down on the table in front of him and knocking Chara’s box of chicken fingers onto the floor again in the process. They had no comment, just getting out of their seat to pick them up then continuing to eat despite the fact that they’d now spilled onto the floor twice and while they may not have been dangerous to eat, they were certainly gritty with dirt tracked onto the floor and crumbs dropped from meals gone past.

“I’m the only one who even knows the first thing about sorting seeds,” She shook her head, leaning on her hand, “Those morons can hardly even tell the difference between tulips and sunflowers. It isn’t very difficult. Tulips are bulbs. Sunflowers are seeds. I need to check practically everyone else’s work… I don’t get paid enough for it, but I guess the job security makes up for that.”

“Mother?” Chara asked, making sure to wait till she was definitely finished, so as not to interrupt.

“Yes, Chara?” She responded, glaring somewhat, “Dear, I have a headache from all that brandy, you know. I don’t really want to deal with your bullshit…”

“I was going to ask if I could work there. I can sort seeds! You taught me all about it, before you got too busy…” They offered earnestly, unsure why they kept trying to connect with their parents despite the obvious fact that their parents didn’t want at all to connect with them. Well, in a sense, their father did, but that wasn’t exactly what they meant or wanted. Maybe it was only human nature, for children to strive for a positive relationship with their parents even if there was no chance in hell.

“Hon, you’re too young to work,” She shook her head, “And work is one of the only times that I can get away from needing to deal with you! So…” She shrugged a bit, waving her hand dismissively, “Sorry, Chara.”

“You aren’t sorry…” They whispered under their breath, unheard and unwanting to be heard, then raised their volume as they held up the empty chicken fingers box, “I’m done eating.”

“Throw out the box then get back to your room. We’ve all fulfilled our socialization quota for today,” Their father grumbled. He often spoke of a quota, which was of course not a real thing, but more of a metaphor. He felt that parents were expected and required to spend a certain amount of time with their children each day, and vice versa; even if he hated his child, he would at least precribe to that idea.

It hadn’t always been this way, of course. Chara hadn’t been unexpected, at least, their existence hadn’t been. Their parents had wanted a child together, so they had one; however, the air began to sour when Chara turned out to be a premature c-section, and even worse when the doctors informed their parents of their peculiar situation. Chara didn’t know any of the technical terms, nor did they even understand it, but the news broken to their parents was a matter of their being intersex. They had at first appeared to be a girl, by standards which most people measured, but it was soon determined that their chromosomes did not in any way match their physiology. Any of the potential ‘fixes’ were just too expensive, so they were left the way they were.

Their parents had often said, when asked if they wanted a girl or a boy, said “as long as it’s healthy”. They apparently didn’t care, but they really did want either/or. They didn’t want Chara, seeing them as some atrocious in-between creature that shouldn’t have ever existed. That name that they had, it had almost never been given to them, and their parents still referred to them only as ‘it’ when it came to pronoun usage. As if they weren’t even human.

Chara counted themself lucky that they were even still alive, with parents like this. Sometimes there were lessons. Reminders, outright lectures given to them (usually by their father) reminding them that they were not normal. That they were not a girl, or a boy, or anything worth anyone’s time. They were a broken and worthless being that was only being kept around thanks to laws against murder and their limited usefulness. They tried not to let it get to them, but they were a young child being taught these things from day one. It was impossible not to believe such terrible things after hearing them so often.

And they were only good for one thing, they would only ever be good for one thing, and they were always reminded of that. The one thing that they were apparently good at, when it was whispered against their face in husky breaths that, this night, smelled strongly of garlic, and they wondered if this was normal for other children.

They didn’t think it was.

Their father told them that it was, and nobody had ever told them otherwise, but something kept them from believing it. If this was a usual thing, why did they have to keep it a secret? If this was a usual thing, well, why did they feel so horrible?

-

The next morning, they put some of their brand new colorful bandaids on their knees, and one on their throat to hide the bruise… it looked like a bruise, at least, that they’d gotten the previous night. Even with the band-aid to hide it, however, they hesitated and threw on the same turtleneck that they’d worn every other time they’d needed to hide one of these. They owned very few articles of clothing, and everything they did own ever since entering the school system had been stolen from the lost and found within the last ten minutes before it got sent to goodwill. They were a good cause for clothing, right? Besides, nobody was going to miss things like this.

A faded t-shirt with sweat stains, a tank top that seemed like it would be too small even for the tiniest, loneliest baby (probably belonging to a doll, Chara couldn’t wear it and didn’t even know why they kept it) and one rather nice t-shirt that was too big for them and had ‘sweetheart’ written across the front were the only summer items they had aside from one pair of oversized cargo shorts, which they wore almost daily; they also owned two pairs of pants, one with a camo pattern, and two different sweaters. A very comfortable turtleneck, and a very scratchy wool one with a zipper down the front. Three socks. A windbreaker, which served as a winter jacket for them. That was the extent of their attire.

Oh, and shoes. A pair of beat-up sneakers that were the same style, but in two different sizes, causing them to limp a slight bit while wearing them just because of the awkwardness of one shoe a size too small for them and the other two sizes too large. Once ready, they went and sat down on the floor next to the front door. If they were not completely ready to go just as soon as their father was, there would most definitely be… consequences. They weren’t sure what. Maybe they’d lose their cereal privilege. 

In any case, however, they were ready, and when they climbed in on the passenger side of the beat-up old truck (they really should have had a booster seat and been in the back, but Chara’s safety was really no concern to anybody in their family, least of all themself.) there was a happy silence between them and their father. With nothing to yell at them for, and in daylight, he wouldn’t say a word, and Chara very much appreciated that fact. Whenever their father opened his mouth, pain just seemed to fall right out.

Grocery shopping was generally just as silent and uneventful. They picked out generic store-brand cereal which seemed to be a version of fruit loops, and helped with the remainder of the shopping. The only hiccup was when, at the checkout, they got distracted by the covers of the tabloids, trying hard to make out the words. They were an unusually good reader for their age, but that was also with generally legible typefaces and alignment, which these magazine covers sorely lacked. When they’d been distracted for too long, their father grabbed their upper arm and dragged them along harshly, only to be stopped in his tracks by a girl sliding out in front of him and pointing at him with hands clad in tough pink gloves. She looked to be a little older than Chara, “I’m security at this here supermarket and I’m not about to let you kidnap anybody on my watch!”

Chara looked over and noticed a bandanna around this girl’s neck. It had badly scribbled abs drawn on it. Abs, of all things. They frowned and spoke softly, “He’s not kidnapping me. He’s my father.”

Although it was the truth, it most certainly felt like a lie.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art done by @peachypasta on twitter, also found at peachypasta.tumblr.com! This chapter simply wouldn't be the same without it, so please do go take a look at more of her work!

_Your original style got you through._

~~~~~~~

It was the same old school. Those same three hallways that had always been… just after the entrance, that same three way fork. One hallway straight forward from the door, one with a slight ramp that led to the gym, the library, and other elective classrooms. To the left, the cafeteria, just after a small and inconsequential vestibule with corkboards where the youngest classrooms were often allowed to post their arts and crafts project, though Chara’s class had lost the privilege after somebody had vandalized Chara’s with all sorts of mean words. Everyone blamed them, even though it hurt them the most of all.

To the right was another hall which stretched out to another stairwell, with the first one right here in the entrance. At Chara’s age, they’d never even gone up the stairs. The next two years they’d still be on the first floor, but after that they’d finally be in a grade high enough to have an upstairs classroom. They looked forward to being in fifth grade; the fifth graders were often visited by highschoolers, and they had already decided that people older than them must be nicer than people their own age, if the woman who owned the drug store was any indication…

Their parents must have been an exception, anyway. Just like there were a few exceptions to mean children, there were bound to be exceptions to kind adults as well. Chara sighed as they stepped forward, avoiding the cracks in the tile off of habit. The same old school indeed, but… not the same old Chara. They clutched their arms to their sides, holding onto both straps of their backpack and making themself as small as possible; they’d put on makeup today, going off of internet tutorials they’d printed out while their parents were out of the house, and worn the nicest clothes possible to boot.

Yet, they were still nervous. Of course they were; could making themself look nice really rescue them from the daily torment they’d endured ever since starting school? It really didn’t seem possible, but-

“Hey, Chara! What happened to your face?” Somebody asked loudly, right in their ear, and they jumped sideways in surprise before turning to look at who it was, though it didn’t matter much. Just another person in their class… a girl, they weren’t sure if this was one of the people who’d previously made fun of them, since they didn’t really keep track, but they just plastered on a bright smile.

“Oh, I fixed it!” They said with as much bubbly enthusiasm as they could conjure up, waving their hand in the air a little bit and even expanding that smile to a grin, “Don’t I look cute?”

“Yeah! I didn’t know that was possible!” Their classmate nodded, leaning in closer and examining, “It doesn’t look icky anymore! That’s amazing!” She stepped away again then looked Chara over more thoroughly, “And you look good when you smile… you should do it more often! Maybe now people won’t pick on you so much. That was mean of them,” So she wasn’t one of the bullies, “I would never pick on somebody! But you did look bad. Sorry.”

“Hm… yeah, okay,” Chara nodded, still smiling as they dropped their hands to their side and puffed out their chest a bit, confident, “Thanks!” And with that they took off for the classroom, assured that now that they didn’t look so… messed up, they’d be able to make lots more friends, or at the very least, not be so alienated anymore. With their footsteps echoing brightly through the hall, they quickly arrived at their classroom and swerved around the corner, sitting down in their assigned seat near the front of the class and setting their backpack beside the legs of their chair before folding their hands on the desk in front of them.

“You’re in class awfully early today, Chara,” Their teacher noted, looking up from a laptop, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here this soon… Or out on the playground, for that matter. I once heard you spent the whole morning in the janitor’s closet, so this is strange. Not bad, of course! Did something happen to make you more confident around your peers?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Chara nodded, beaming, “I learned how to do makeup, so my face doesn’t look so bad anymore. I can make friends now!”

“Well you know, making friends isn’t just about appearances. Looking nice and having good hygiene can help, but that isn’t all that goes into making a friend. You have to be kind, and talk about common interests, and make sure to talk to them often, but not too often. Making friends is difficult, but I believe in you, Chara. I’m glad you’re feeling confident, and I hope you will succeed. It’s always sad to see an outsider in my classroom, so I’ll do anything I can to help you. You’ll have a perfect opportunity today, too. We’re getting a transfer student. Oh, but don’t tell anybody else! It’s going to be a surprise during homeroom!” The teacher informed them, and they nodded. They knew all that stuff already; they’d learned it when they made friends with adults, after all, so they were confident they’d find befriending kids their age easy once the shallowness of appearance was overcome…

Although, they had to admit, hygiene was a bit of a sticking point too. They showered whenever they got the chance of course, and they washed their hands often, possibly more than any other kid their age even. They didn’t own a toothbrush, but they were always very careful to scrape all the buildup off their teeth with their fingernails, possibly another reason they kept their hands so clean. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much they could do to remedy any bad breath they might have had though, so they’d just have to be careful not to breathe on any newfound friends too much. And their clothes… well, they snuck use of the washing machine when they were home alone, but with the limited number of outfits they owned even that couldn’t help much.

A few moments later, somebody else arrived in the classroom. Chara recognized this classmate, unlike the past one, and they knew he was somebody not to be trusted. While most of the bullies were forgettable, this guy had once pushed them in the mud and ruined one of their only shirts, one that was short-sleeved and striped. They tried and tried, but couldn’t get the stains out and found themselves down one clothing item. It was people like him that they really needed to impress…

He paused as he stepped into the room and stared at Chara, but unlike usual, it didn’t feel to them as if he was leering. Rather, he just looked a bit confused before he shrugged and walked over to his own desk, sitting down without any further incident. Chara didn’t expect that they’d end up being friends with a guy like that, but at least it seemed they’d be able to escape further torment, on some level. More students filtered in, most stopping to give Chara a quizzical look before going along their merry ways.

It was… strangely satisfying, to be treated in such a neutral way. Neutral was better than the merciless teasing they’d endured before, just for looking the way that they did by no fault of their own, and while it wasn’t the best possible outcome it was still a massive improvement over the past. Chara’s wide smile became more and more genuine with each peer that reconsidered them, and by the time the classroom was filled they were absolutely brimming with confidence and relief.

“Good morning, class!” The teacher called out to them all as he stepped to the front of the room, holding his hands folded over each other in front of himself and smiling warmly before picking up the attendance sheet that he kept on a shelf next to the blackbord.

“Good morning Mister Danielson!” The class echoed back in a childish chorus, full of the type of enthusiasm that only young children yet unbroken by the horrors of the public school system could muster up in a classroom.

“I have a surprise for you all, today!” He informed them, and a few kids shouted out their ideas for what the surprise could be- meeting Mrs. Danielson, a pizza party, a surprise field trip to the local amusement park- but he just chuckled and shook his head, “No, no, it’s none of those things, kids. We have a new student joining our class! He’s going to come in and introduce himself!” Mr. Danielson stepped to the side and looked towards the door as a boy dressed in very nice clothes walked in, then turned to the class and smiled, waving.

“Hello everyone! My name’s Kusumu, and I’m from Indonesia! My family moved here just a little while ago,” He introduced himself brightly, then was prompted by the teacher to give a few fun facts about himself, “Fun facts? Gee, I dunno if I’ve got anything all that fun about me, but I’ll try and think of a few! Um… I really like dancing, I used to take ballet classes actually and I think I’ll try to take some more now that I’m here. My mom and dad are separated but not divorced because Mom had a job here in America, but Dad couldn’t afford to leave his in Indonesia until he got a really good offer over here! My parents still live in different parts of the country but now Dad and I go for a drive to visit Mom on the weekends. She owns a clothing company and sends me lots of nice clothes! Also, I love adventure and mysteries!”

“That’s wonderful! Those are indeed fun facts. Why don’t you go and take a seat? I think there’s an open one there,” Mr. Danielson pointed at a desk, “Next to Chara.”

“Thank you!” Kusumu nodded then sat in the desk he’d been directed to, glancing over at Chara then whispering to them, “Hi there! It’s nice to meet you. He said your name was Chara? That’s an odd name, but I like it! What does it mean?”

“Chara, short for Character, though they aren’t pronounced the same,” Chara answered, voice dropping into a tone much less confident than before, “It was the only name that my parents could get away with that they wanted to use. They almost called me something meaner, but the hospital wouldn’t let them. It’s because they don’t want to think that I’m a real person…”

“Oh, that’s not nice at all… I’m sorry I asked! How about, to make it up to you, you can come over to my house for dinner tonight and meet my dad? He’s a really cool guy! And uh, if it’s any consolation at all, I think that Chara is a really nice name. It sounds cute, and if it means character, then you can just think of yourself as the main character in a story! If that’s the case then no matter how sad you get, you’ll always come out on top!”

“I never really thought of it that way…” Chara whispered softly, staring up at the ceiling and letting another soft smile come across their face, “That’s really nice of you to say. Next time I feel sad, I’ll just remember that, I think… If it’s okay with you…”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t want you to remember it when you get upset! You were smiling when I walked in, but you don’t seem like a very happy person, so I’d really like it if I could change that, Chara,” He smiled sheepishly, then noticed that the class’s lecture was starting, “I should pay attention, but you’ll see me after school, won’t you?”

Chara just grinned and nodded enthusiastically before turning their attention back to the teacher as well, a feeling of accomplishment swelling in their chest. They’d succeeded in making a friend their age, for the first time in their whole life, and that was something truly spectacular. Kusumu was supposed to get a tour of the school during lunch and recess, so Chara still sat alone when lunchtime rolled around, but at least that loneliness was reliable, unlike times in the past when their solitude had been broken for the purpose of teasing them with questions that seemed friendly, until their responses were snickered at.

Recess wasn’t the same, either. It was just like the most positive recesses they’d ever had, the rare times when others were more preoccupied with other things besides harrassing them, and they’d even gotten outside quickly enough to claim a swing for themself; a rare and wonderful happenstance for anybody in elementary school, but especially so for somebody like Chara. They’d never been convinced that they deserved anything, and yet… they felt so wonderful and great, finally feeling as if their life was taking a turn for the better, halfway through Kindergarten.

“Hey, you!” Somebody said from beside them while they were spacing out, sitting on the swing and not moving. They almost fell off of it when they were startled, but kept their balance well enough to turn and look at the source of the voice and the creaking chains of a moving swing, “Didn’t I see you at the grocery store yesterday??” Ah, it was the girl with the bandanna.

“Um… Maybe?” Chara mumbled softly, holding the chains of the swing a little bit tighter.

“Hey, what’s the matter? Why aren’t you swinging, and also, you seem kinda scared of me. I know I’m strong, but I shouldn’t be scary to a kid like you! I’m a paragon of bravery, protecting kids around the world from mean grown-ups who want to hurt them!” She moved one hand from the chain of the swing to flex her arm. She had a lot of muscle for a second-grader, the highest grade to share a recess with the kindergarteners.

“Sorry! Sorry, I just, you saw me with my dad, and without makeup, that’s two things that would make people not want to talk to me usually…” They trailed off and started kicking their legs to swing higher. They’d had to figure out how swings worked all on their own, with nobody to teach them, but thankfully it seemed that they’d worked it out correctly, “Because I looked bad, and he’s kind of an icky guy…”

“Well yeah, but that’s just more of a reason for me to wanna look out for you! If your dad’s such an icky-looking guy that I thought he was a kidnapper, and you looked sad enough that I thought you were being kidnapped, then you really need the help of a hero like me!” She chuckled as their swings fell into sync with each other, “Look at that! We’re married.”

“You sound really smart for a kid,” Chara laughed a bit as well, “That’s a… joke, right?”

“Yeah! It’s just a silly game to play on the swings! If you’re perfectly in sync then you’re married, if you’re just close then you’re dating, if you’re far apart you’re divorced, and if you’re totally opposite then you’re mortal enemies!” She shrugged, “I just read a lot of books! That’s where I got the idea to protect people. I thought, hey, if I’m strong, then I can be courageous too, just like the heroes in the books I read!”

“That’s so cool… I wish I could read a lot of books too…” Chara mumbled in awe, staring at this upperclassman.

“Well, I can lend you some! We have like, hundreds at my house! But, if I want to talk to you again, I’m gonna need to know your name. Mine’s Philomena!” She sounded so enthusiastic, and sincere about looking out for Chara; three people wanting to help them be happy, in one day? It was almost overwhelming.

“I’m Chara,” They responded very simply, smiling, “It’s really nice to meet you, but you don’t have to do that! I would love to read more books, but I’m okay, really! You don’t have to be nice to me, just because…”

“Well, if you’re so sure about that, then I’m not being nice to you just because, I’m being nice to you because I wanna be your friend! I get that maybe it’s hard to believe that people wanna help you out, especially if your home situation isn’t a great one, but you know, for every bad person in the world there’s at least five more nice people! You just have to keep an eye out for them!”

\--

School drew to a close a few hours after recess, with Kusumu back in class but without the opportunity to chat; neither Chara nor their newfound friend were quick enough at solving math problems to have any leftover time to talk before the bell rang, though as soon as it did Kusumu stood up and grabbed his bag, then stood next to Chara’s desk, grinning, “I sent a text message to my dad and got permission for you to come to dinner, so it’s on, as long as you’re still up for it!”

“Well, I don’t have permission…” Chara muttered softly as they stood up as well, “Or a cell phone… but I know my mom’s number. Could I borrow yours to call her and ask?”

“Totally!” Kusumu nodded, then handed over a flip phone. Smart phones were starting to get pretty popular, but not to a point that anybody would give one to a kindergartener, so it wasn’t surprising at all how old his phone was. Chara took it, opened it up, and slowly dialed their mom’s number before holding the phone to their ear, gingerly.

“H-Hi, Mother…” Chara spoke softly into the phone, shaking a bit. They’d never even dare to call their dad at all, but at least their mother had occasionally shown them a slight bit of kindness, so it was only terrifying to call her rather than absolutely impossible.

“Chara? Whose phone are you using and why are you calling me while I’m at work?” She questioned, sounding pissed off but not furious. That was a good start.

“Um, well, I, sort of, made a friend!” They hesitated between each word, forcing them out fearfully, “His name is Kusumu and he invited me to go over to his house for dinner! I uh, I’ll find my own way home after, and this way you and Dad don’t have to feed me. You could go out to a nice restaurant together, maybe! W-wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Mm, well, as long as I don’t have to get involved, you can do whatever you want. Not so sure you’re telling me the truth about this friend thing, but Hell, who am I to pass up the opportunity to get rid of you for an evening? Go ahead, but it’s your own fault if you get jumped on your way home or somethin’...” It sounded like her level of caring was completely equivalent to what she said it was, but it was better than a lack of permission totally. Far better, actually.

“Thank you! Bye!” Chara was overjoyed as they hung up the phone and handed it back to Kusumu, beaming, “She said yes, as long as she doesn’t have to pick me up after!”

“That’s great! We have to walk there, but my dad can probably give you a ride home after!” He assured them, then turned to leave, making sure Chara was following after taking a few steps, “Do you wanna learn how to dance? I can’t teach you anything complicated but it could be really fun to try and teach you simple things!” He looked down and put his foot next to Chara’s, “Your foot is the same size as mine, so you could use some of my slippers! Not the pointe shoes though, I’ve been doing ballet since I could walk and I only just started using those! You would probably break your ankle!”

“That could be fun!” Chara nodded, but then stopped in their tracks at the entranceway of the school, noticing through the glass door that the overcast sky that had been present during recess had fulfilled its purpose, now pouring buckets on the outside. Their face fell, “Oh…”

“What, it’s just a little rain. We can walk through it!” Kusumu assured them, putting a hand on their shoulder, and they just frowned, looking down at the ground and crossing their arms over their chest.

“If we walk through the rain you might not want to be my friend after all…” They mumbled, staring at the tiled floor below them.

“Huh? That’s silly. Why would I change my mind so quickly?” He laughed softly, shaking his head as he reached out and grabbed Chara’s wrist, pulling them along. They hesitated a bit, but then went along with him fearfully. As soon as they walked out from under the awning of the door, they started to cry; if the rain wasn’t going to wash off their makeup, then their tears certainly would. Kusumu kept walking, though, until a few blocks away when he suddenly stopped and stared at them, and their crying intensified immediately at that.

“I-I told you, I knew it, I knew that if we went out into the rain then you’d hate me…” They sniffled, pulling their wrist away and shaking their head, “I’m never, never,” They hid their face in their hands, “Never going to make any friends… I’m never going to be happy…”

“Hate you?” Kusumu sounded hurt as he spoke, concerned, then grabbed their wrists and pulled their hands away from their face, “You shouldn’t hide your face, Chara. I was just thinking, that you… you’re a really pretty person.”

“But, my-”

“Your makeup came off? Well, I guess when people are mean it makes sense to hide your face, but that’s not necessary with me! Just because you have some scars doesn’t make you any less beautiful, or handsome, okay?” He offered, smiling softly at them, “I really want to be your friend, Chara. You have a nice smile… that means I can trust you. You can tell a lot about people from their smile, you know? Let’s get to my house!”

 

Chara was speechless as they continued to be dragged along, but smiled again. That smile which their friend said was… nice, on that face which was not only not called ugly, but called pretty for the first time in their life. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe adults weren’t basically good, kids weren’t basically bad… there were just some people in the world who were willing to be kind to somebody who was trying to forget the fact that they were not a person, but a thing, in the eyes of so many others.

Maybe they didn’t deserve this compassion… But they would cherish it while they could.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art is once more by peachypasta! Please, her contributions are so important, support her on other media!

_“Your concern and care led you to a delicious victory.”_  
\------------------------------

“This is my house!” Kusumu grinned as he gestured around the kitchen, the first room that the door opened onto. This was the first time Chara had been in a house other than their own, but they had to wonder how common it was for the kitchen to be the nearest room to the front door. Perhaps that was the norm, although, in movies it did differ… sometimes there was a foyer, sometimes it opened onto the living room, but they couldn’t recall any other variations. Perhaps the commonality of any particular front door locale just had to do with how few options there were, for where to put the door.

It was a better looking house than Chara’s, notable in the fact that it was actually a house and not an apartment in a broken down, falling-apart building. Not that they disliked apartments in general, but theirs was such a bad one that just about anything was an improvement. They couldn’t even see any holes in the walls or water damage on the ceiling, so this was certainly something new and interesting to them. They were stuck standing there in awe for a good minute before they finally spoke again, “It’s a good house. A nice house. I like it.”

“Me too!” Kusumu nodded eagerly, “I actually helped pick it out! We had four options of houses in our budget range within commuting distance of my dad’s job, and the final decision between the four came down to me! So I picked this one!” He proclaimed proudly, putting his hands on his hips, “I might even like it better than where we lived in Indonesia! It has more closets, and an attic. Mysterious places like that are really cool, don’t you think?”

“Yeah!” They agreed, grinning, “I love mysterious places! I have a hole in my wall where I hide things! There’s not really anything else like that in my house, though… the hole isn’t even big enough to hide inside.”

“That’s horrible! Come on,” He seemed shocked, then grabbed their wrist again and took off, going up one set of stairs then dragged a wooden chair over to climb on top of and open a trapdoor in the ceiling, pulling a ladder down and already starting to climb it before he decided to let Chara know what he was doing, “Let’s build a fort in the attic! If we’re quick enough we can do it before my dad gets home, and then he’ll be impressed with our building skills! He’s a carpenter… or, well, a businessman for a carpenter company, but I’m sure he’d think our fort is really awesome, Chara!”

“”Are you sure…? We won’t get in trouble for making a mess, or anything?” They questioned nervously as they followed him up the ladder, looking around the attic. The walls didn’t exist, sloping straight into the roof and making the space very interesting. It was a tall roof, so an average-height adult man could probably still stand up in the center row of the room, but otherwise it was like a room made for kids in terms of its navigability.

“Look! Here’s what we’ll do. All these boxes are the things that me and dad don’t need to unpack yet, like summer clothes and things for camping trips, so it won’t be a problem if we use them, and we won’t need to be upset about taking down our fort because it’ll be months until we need to!” He explained, starting to drag boxes around, “And if you want to get some sheets for the roof, and some blankets or pillows to make the attic floor comfier, you can go back downstairs and look in the linen closet! It’s the second door on the left if you go forward after getting down the ladder.”

“Which one is left again…?” Chara asked, frowning a bit, “They didn’t teach us that in school...:”

“Yeah, they usually don’t! Most of the time parents do, but I guess yours are too mean to do something nice like that… it’s okay, though!” Kusumu smiled at them, stepping forward and grabbing their hands, shaping them both into vertical finger pistols, “Look! You know how to read and how to write. The left hand is the one that looks like an uppercase L, for Left, get it?”

“Oh… yeah!” Chara nodded, staring at their hands, “That’s really cool… who decided that? Did they name left because of the L? Or is it just a really good coincidence?”

“I don’t know, actually! And, if it’s too hard to remember it that way, just think about what hand you write with. You’re lefthanded-I noticed in class! It’s kind of rare to be left-handed so you might be able to remember it by that,” He explained, then let go of their hands and got back to moving boxes while they turned and went back down the ladder, checking on their hands again to see where they had to go. Second door on the… left. They reached it and grabbed the doorknob, only for a stack of pillows to immediately fall onto them.

They didn’t fall onto the ground, but they were quite literally shoulder-high in pillows. Must have been stuffed into that now rather empty shelf, and one falling just triggered all the others… well, they might as well bring all of these upstairs… in multiple trips, of course. There was no way they could handle this whole pile, especially not on a ladder. As they soon discovered, even just one pillow was a little tough, though the difficulty stayed about the same with three, so at least they didn’t have to go at _quite_ a snail’s pace. For some reason the thought popped into their head of a snail accidentally going so fast it caught on fire… but it was gone in seconds, as with most inexplicable thoughts people had.

Once they’d gotten through the pile of pillows, they took a closer look in the closet, finding some light pink sheets which looked like they were for a king-size bed… the perfect size to make a roof for a fort, of course! They picked up the sheets which were nicely folded, making sure to take only tge top sheet, as the elastic on the fitted sheet would just make it harder to use… once delivering that to Kusumu they took a few more trips down, finding a twin-size sheet that they could use as a door, and some fluffy blankets and one comforter that, along with the pillows, would make the fort a comfortable place to sit and read. They wondered if Kusumu liked to read… and if that girl really was going to give them some books. They would truly love if something like that was to happen.

“Okay, Chara! Thanks for your help, I’ve got it all set up!” Kusumu said brightly as Chara came up the ladder one last time with the comforter, “Oh, perfect! I know just where to put that as the finishing touch… oh! And!” He had started to take the comforter but pushed it back into Chara’s arms and jumped down from the attic, wincing a bit at the jolt his feet got as he landed and muttering, “Note to self… do not do that,” before running in another direction and coming back with what appeared to be a casette player with speakers.

“What is that…?” Chara asked, raising an eyebrow. The classroom had a speaker which played CDs, yes, but they’d never seen anything quite like this before. The CD player was much more… refined looking, and apparently even that was on its way to being obsolete technology with the rise of downloadable mp3s and internet speed.

“It’s my dad’s old casette player! It plays music off of… have you ever seen a VHS tape?” Chara nodded. Mr. Danielson’s ancient classroom tv only played VHS, which was the classroom’s source of Bill Nye and Magic School Bus, “Okay well, it’s like those, but smaller and just music. Come inside with me!” He ran through the makeshift door which had in fact been made by hanging a twin sheet from the ceiling, in between walls of boxes that actually blocked off the entire interior of the fort from view. Chara grinned and followed him.

 

The inside was a pile of pillows and blankets, with that pink king-sized sheet stretched over the top. It was dark except for a toy lantern that Kusumu must have set up at some point when Chara was busy in the closet, which had a sort of blue color that glowed nicely throughout the entire fort and illuminated it warmly. Chara could very easily sleep in here, but… they doubted that they’d be allowed to get away with a sleepover. Their mother might be fine with it, but their father would be disappointed to lose his entertainment for that night. Besides, they could just see now what their parents would say. How could they be trusted around another kid? They were just disgusting, after all. Hardly human at all. A perverted brat-

“Chara?” Kusumu’s voice broke them out of their thoughts and they looked up, meeting his eyes, “Why are you crying? Did I do something wrong? I’m really sorry if I did!”

“N-no it’s not you,” They sniffed, hiding their face in the comforter that they were carrying, “It’s just… it’s just that this is so nice and I… I really like it. I really love this fort and you’re being so nice to me and I don’t think I’ve really had a friend before. Not like you, not my age, and… I always thought that I was just a bad kid and that I didn’t deserve nice things but now you’re doing all of this for me and I want… I want to keep it… This fort is so good and I’d want to sleep here, but I, I know that I can’t. I’d never be allowed, and my parents would call me all sorts of names and they’re probably right… Grown-ups are always right…”

“No, that’s not true, Chara. Grown-ups just want you to think that they’re always right so you listen to them. My mom told me that, on the phone when I was back in Indonesia, she said… she said that a lot of grown-ups think kids are stupid, that we shouldn’t think for ourselves, that every grown-up is smarter than us, so we should listen to them and believe everything they say… grown-ups want us to behave, so they make us think they’re better than us, and always right, but that just means that they can hurt us more if they’re not _really_ right. Mom told me that I should do my best to always behave, but that I shouldn’t trust grown-ups. They can be really bad, Chara, and they’re everywhere. Your parents are some of them, I think.”

“It’s hard not to believe them when they’ve said the same things always, from the beginning, they really believe they’re right… and they made me… if they think they made a mistake, making me, then that really does make me a mistake…” Chara whined, keeping their face deep within the blanket now. Were they hiding their tears, or the scars again? All they knew was they didn’t want Kusumu to see. It was embarrassing, to get this upset in front of a friend.

“No, the real mistake is being mean to you! If they are right about anything bad they call you, then it’s their own fault you’re like that… and I don’t think you are,” He insisted, pulling the comforter away to look them in the eyes, “Just because nobody’s been nice to you before, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be nice to! I think you’re really cool, and I want to be your friend,” Kusumu smiled at them before turning and setting the casette player on a single box on the floor, in an area of the fort without any blankets.

As soon as the casette player was down, Kusumu spread the comforter out on the remaining bare floor, then put heavy boxes on each corner to keep it down and flat before standing up straight and spreading his arms out with a grin, “Look at this! Now we have a nice big area right in our fort, that we can dance in! If you want to, of course.”

“I want to…” Chara nodded, sniffling again and smiling through their tears, sitting down on one of the pillows and wrapping a nearby blanket around themself, “Just, maybe not right now. That’s really really amazing, though… I hope that I can come over again sometime to try it out!” They forced cheeriness despite their recent mood, and it was surprisingly… less forced than they expected, but then, it made sense. Their tears were almost happy ones right now, they were just so incredibly touched by this compassion… but they still felt sad, knowing that they’d lose it as soon as they had to go home.

“Kusumu! I’m home!” A voice reached them up in the attic, and Chara was startled, but not so much that they moved. The voice was loud and booming, but not in any way unfriendly. That must have been Kusumu’s dad. Had it really been an hour?

“Dad’s back!” He hopped to the door of the fort enthusiastically, going over to the trapdoor and leaning out of it before yelling back to him, “Hi Dad! My friend and I are in the attic! We made a fort and you should come see!”

“Be right up!” He called in response, and Kusumu stayed waiting outside the fort until his dad came up the ladder. As a taller than average man, he couldn’t stand up in the attic at all, so he crawled into the fort and looked around, “This is a pretty nice fort you got here, Sport. It’d be a shame to ever take it down, actually, it’s really sturdy. Well-made,” He flashed a thumbs-up as Kusumu returned inside behind him, then looked over at Chara and waved, “You must be Chara! Nice to meet you! I’m glad my son was able to make a friend so quickly after starting school in a new place!”

“I’m glad too,” Chara nodded a bit, crossing their arms and looking over Kusumu’s dad. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but had a softness about him. He seemed gentle and kind, “It is nice to meet you. Kusumu is a very nice boy, also. I don’t have a lot of friends but he became my friend right away…”

“That’s just like him. Just like his mother, he was always good at spotting good people! I hope to see you over here a lot, Miss… Mister… uh… Chara…”

“Just Chara is absolutely fine, sir… I’m not a Miss or a Mister,” They explained softly, but smiled, clasping their hands together outside of the blanket, “I’d like to come here often, too, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to… it’s a very nice house, and it seems like it has very nice people.”

“Well, you’re always welcome! Except for weekends, but that’s just because nobody’s going to be home then. I bet that you and Kusumu are going to have a long and great friendship! Now… I can’t stand up very well in here, so I think I’ll leave this fort to you. Things like this are meant for kids, anyway! If you want you can pretend I never even knew it existed, and it can be like your secret clubhouse… but I’ll get you a nice floor lamp first, before that. You’re going to need something brighter than this lantern occasionally! Dinner’s in an hour!” He chuckled, picking up the lantern then putting it back down before crawling out again and going down the ladder.

“Your dad is cool…” Chara whispered after they were sure he’d gone completely.

“Yeah, he really is! He’s a really nice guy! My mom is too. Sorry if that makes you sad because yours aren’t…” Kusumu started off excited, but trailed off towards the end and frowned.

“Hm? Oh, no, it won’t upset me. I’m glad. It would be really hard for us to be friends and spend time together if we both had bad parents, after all,” They spoke softly, hugging their knees to their chest and staring blankly at the dimly flickering light in the toy lantern, “If my house was no good to be at, and yours was too, then what house could we go to? I’m really glad that yours is good. I make friends with more grown-ups than kids anyway, I like nice adults… they don’t care as much that my face is bad. I think they pity me, but at least it makes them nice to me, so I don’t mind a lot.”

“Well, I’m not pitying you. I really just think you’re great! I promise! I know that my dad feels the same way, too,” Kusumu grinned at them, and they smiled back at him, “There’s that smile again! That’s how I know we’re going to be great friends. Anyone with a smile like that is bound to be a friend of mine! As long as you want to… that is…”

“What? Of course I want to!” They reassured him, unwrapping themself from the blanket and crawling over to look him in the eyes, “Somebody wanting to be my friend is the best thing to ever happen to me, after all.”

“Okay, good! I’m glad!” Kusumu nodded, relaxing, “The truth is, I’ve never been great at making friends… I mean, I like making them, and I’m good at figuring out if somebody’s a good person, but I always blow it somehow… People think I’m weird, or too friendly, and they don’t tell me outright but they stop talking to me so I know that they don’t want to be my friend.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Chara blurted, in awe, “Who wouldn’t want to be friends with you? This afternoon has already been the most fun I’ve had in maybe my entire life!”

“Thanks Chara…” He smiled softly, “I’m glad I chose this house. It was the only one in this town, so… if I hadn’t picked it, then I wouldn’t have even met you.”

\-------

“So, Allison! Your little sister’s coming to this school next year, right? Are you worried?” Philomena questioned, walking to lunch with a friend of hers from the other second grade class.

“Hm? Why are you asking me this now?” The girl, apparently named Allison, answered in obvious confusion as she slowed her pace a little bit to match Philomena’s.

“Well yesterday, I met a Kindergarten kid who seemed really sad, then I remembered your sister is in preschool, and that next year we’ll have late lunch so we won’t have recess at the same time as kindergarten anymore, and you know that little kids can be mean!” She explained, grabbing onto Allison’s arm and dropping her voice into a raspy and dramatic tone, “Are you seriously ready to subject your precious little sis to bullying on the playground, with nobody to protect her?? Maybe we should flunk so we get held back a year!”

“Philomena, we don’t have to do something like that,” Allison chuckled softly, shaking her head, “Mandy’s a smart kid, she can take care of herself, I’m sure. I never had anyone to protect me, and I’m just fine…”

“You lack self-confidence!” Philomena insisted, dragging her hands down her friend’s arm now and falling to her knees in the middle of the hallway.

“Oh, get up…” Allison sighed as she pulled Philomena back to her feet, looking at her softly, “And stop quoting pamphlets at me… I’m plenty confident, I’m just not as loud as you. There is a difference, you know,” She continued walking now, arms crossed. Philomena had to dash slightly to catch up to her.

“H-Hey, wait for me!” She stammered, but then noticed something out of the corner of her eye and hesitated, taking another look, “No, seriously. Stay right here for. Three minutes, I’ll be right back! I need to talk to that kid over there,” and without even waiting for a response, she took off, “Chara!”

“Huh?” Confused, Chara looked up suddenly and turned their head, glancing around. It had been a few days since they’d gone to Kusumu’s house for dinner, and since then they’d kept wearing makeup and hanging out with him. He was the only who’d called their name since then, and he was right next to them, so it clearly wasn’t him who’d called them; but then they spotted her, “Philomena?”

“Nice, you remembered my name! Uh, I haven’t been able to catch you since Monday, but I just did, right now, so here!” She took off her backpack and reached into it, producing a plastic bag full of books and handing it to Chara, “I picked out some books that I liked when I was in Kindergarten! They might be a little bit above your reading level, but if you just stay determined I’m sure you’ll get through them anyway!”

“Whoa!” Chara took the bag, staring at it, then lifting their head to stare at the giver as well, “You… you’ll really let me borrow these books?” They reached in and pulled one out, looking at the blurb on the back of it, “This seems really good! Really cool! I promise I’ll read it no matter how hard it is!”

“That’s the spirit!” Philomena laughed, flashing them a thumbs-up, “And no, I’m not letting you borrow them. You can keep them! If you have somewhere to put them, of course. I wouldn’t wanna get you in any trouble.”

“Chara!” Kusumu interrupted, grabbing their arm and smiling at them, “There’s a bookshelf in the attic! In our fort! You can put them there and that’d be really great, wouldn’t it? Our fort would be a great place to read books, it’s so comfy!”

“You two have a fort? That’s awesome! Forts are the best thing ever! Like comfy little castles,” Philomena trailed off, holding her hands to her chest dreamily.

“How about you put an easy bake oven in there…?” Another quiet voice joined the conversation.

“A-Allison!” Philomena turned to her sharply, “I told you to stay right where you were!”

“Well, what’s the point? Am I going to embarrass you by talking to somebody? I’m a certified babysitter, you know, I’m good with younger kids,” Allison dismissed her with a calm wave, then leaned down to be at eye level with Chara, “It’d be nice to be able to cook in there, right? Easy-bake ingredients don’t take up a lot of space either, you could make it like your own little home in there. I have one I don’t use anymore, since I started baking with the real oven, and my sister’s uninterested in it,” She offered, then reached into her own bag and pulled out a tupperware container, opening it then holding it out, “Would you like a cookie?”

“Why are you trying to give me things?” Chara questioned flatly, tilting their head in obvious confusion. _Another_ nice person? This was just getting ridiculous.

“It seems like the right thing to do? If Philomena’s interested in you then it means that she thinks you need to be protected. And if you need to be protected, then you need people to be nice to you too, right?” She offered, then smiled and nodded to herself, “I think so, at least.”

“Besides, Allison gives cookies to everyone… she bakes them like every day or something and needs to get rid of them by pawning them off on others,” Philomena laughed, rolling her eyes before turning to look at her friend, “But, that’s nice. It’s cool that people expect a cookie when they talk to you, it gives you a real good reputation!”

“Hmm, well, that’s not why I do it… I just want to make people happy, really. If I can make people happy every day of my life, then I’ll be happy too,” She explained, nodding slowly.

“Hey!” Kusumu spoke up again, “Why don’t we be friends? You can both hang out in me and Chara’s fort too, it can be like a party except not loud because those parties aren’t a lot of fun.”

“I agree completely,” Allison responded, “About the parties, I mean. I’d much rather just spend time with people without loud music and other noise… but it sounds like that fort is really special to you two, and we’re second graders, so it would just be strange… But we can be friends, of course! And maybe someday it would make sense for us to visit your fort, but not yet.”

“Yeah that makes sense,” Chara nodded, voice faint and mumbling as they already had their nose deep in one of the books that Philomena had given them.

“Right… it’s not time for us to be best friends, just yet, because it’s weird for second graders to be friends with kindergarteners, but someday we’ll be in fifth grade when you’re in third and that won’t be as weird anymore!” Philomena added, “And… we should probably get to lunch before the bell rings and we totally miss it.”

“Mhm…” Chara nodded, then started to walk while they read. The book was, as Philomena said, a bit difficult for them, but they were managing. Any word that seemed strange or unknown, they could figure out in context, and they always did enjoy reading; they’d managed to teach themself off of subtitles prior to starting school, when they peered in on their parents watching television. They weren’t supposed to watch it themself, keep the electric bills down, and their parents wouldn’t waste the time the TV _was_ in use on silly little kids’ shows, so Chara probably knew some words they shouldn’t as a result of watching from the stairs.

And they’d gotten in trouble for watching, at times, too, but… this book they were reading now. The ability to read it, the fact that they could read it… this was worth it. This was worth any amount of punishment, any amount of growing up too quickly, and it wasn’t even just the words or the story; it was what the book represented. A kindness shown towards them, somebody who wanted to help them know more about the world, enjoy themself more… and finally, they had a hobby. Something that they could do in their free time, where there was previously nothing.

That was it, wasn’t it? That they had this, an opportunity to find something better than what they’d always known. Their life, it was… improving, and they were beginning to accept that fact. Yes. Maybe they were worth it after all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by peachypasta once more!!! Please, if you enjoy this fic, support her as well!

“I’m a terrible fahthah… ahahah…”  
_”That’s not funny.”_

\---------------------------------

“Chara! You have to remember to point your toes!” Kusumu scolded them, but was laughing as he did so. Scoldings from him were distinctly different from anything Chara had ever gotten before, the most lighthearted way of telling them that they’d made a mistake… of course, they laughed along, because the way that they’d completely toppled to the floor was pretty funny, and it was less painful than most injuries they got in a day, so they didn’t even mind at all.

“I’m trying! It’s just so hard to keep track of everything when I’m moving so fast… I don’t have very good reflexes,” They explained, chuckling, “If somebody throws something at me, I can’t even move fast enough to keep it from hitting me right in the face… but I’m having fun, so I don’t want to give up!”

“You’re improving!” Kusumu assured them, then turned over and reached into the bookshelf, “Last month, there’s no way you could manage a spin like that, even if you did mess up, you’ll get it eventually! Anyone can be good at anything if they just try really hard,” He smiled as he opened up a book, “When you first got these, I thought there was no way I could possibly read them, but I kept at it, and now I can! It’s all because you encouraged me to stay determined, talking about how good the ending was…”

“Well, it was a really good ending,” They shrugged, sitting down as well. It was tradition, that they’d take a break and read a little after dance practice. Allison’s easy-bake oven had also found its place in the room, and the two children tended to use it to make snacks for themselves right after arriving there after school, though they always made sure not to spoil their appetites, “And like you said, I knew you could do it if you really tried! I read a book, that said determination is something that all people have inside them… Before I met you, I wouldn’t have believed that, but now I’m sure of it.”

“You’re even more determined than most, Chara,” Kusumu smiled as he sat up, “I read that same book too, you know. It said that determination shows itself in a lot of ways. There’s kindness, because it’s hard to be nice to people in a world where so many people are cruel… Bravery, the determination to face the future rather than run away… Patience, having the determination to wait for a long time for something instead of getting bored and giving up… A lot like perseverance, which is the determination of trying over and over till you get it right… Justice, the hard decision that people should get what they deserve…”

“Integrity, the ability to stand up for the way you feel and think even when people put it down or make fun of you for it,” Chara continued, remembering the passage themself, “And I think that’s all of them? That was a really nice book, I liked it a lot…”

“You’re missing one, and that’s determination. Pure determination, I mean, determination that can’t be any of the other types because you have them all. I think that’s you, Chara. I don’t know everything you’ve been through, or what happens in your home, I don’t know what your parents do to you and because of your makeup, I haven’t seen any of the bullying you’ve needed to put up with, but I can tell anyway that you really are determined.”

“Hm, that can’t be right,” Chara shook their head, frowning, “If I was really like that, then I’d be determined to keep trying, but I wasn’t. I wanted to die, for a long time. These books talk about people like that, but they’re always so much older, they’ve already held on longer than me-”

“But, that’s not true! You’re still here today, which means that you didn’t give up! Being discouraged doesn’t mean you aren’t determined anymore, as long as you could bring yourself to face each day ahead of you no matter how much you were hurting, that’s what I think it means to be determined, and I really think that’s you!” He insisted, leaning forward and putting a hand on their shoulder, “You’re just wonderful, Chara, I’m so happy to be your friend.”

“Hmm,” They smiled at him, thinking, then stood up again, “Well, if I’m so determined, then I just have to be determined to try again, right? Reading can wait!” They held their fist out in the air in front of them, grinning, “I’m not going to stop until I can do a perfect pirouette!”

“That’s the spirit!” Kusumu nodded, encouraging them, mutual enthusiasm flying throughout the room between them as he also got to his feet to cheer them on, putting the music (which wasn’t exactly suited for ballet, but was fun anyhow) back on.

And that was how, ten minutes later, Chara came to be lying on the ground and staring up at the attic ceiling, stunned, dazed, with chunks of glass in their face. They could hardly even feel the shards, through the scar tissue, but there were a few more around their body that they were starting to feel, as well as a weight on their chest. They came out of the momentary fog and glanced down to see a pole across their chest; ah. So they’d fallen over and knocked down the floor lamp which Kusumu’s dad had put there.

“I’m…” Chara started, stunned, then started speaking way too quickly, “I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I can’t believe I did this I broke it I broke something that belongs to you and your dad this is horrible I’m sorry please don’t hurt me-” They took a deep breath before continuing their high-speed panic, “Actually go ahead and hurt me okay I deserve it I’m sorry I’m so sorry I’m the worst I’m just, I’m just the worst child ever I’m horrible and I shouldn’t have been born and I tried so hard not to cause you trouble but now I DID and I-”

“Chara!” Kusumu shouted, cutting them off and turning away, “I’m going to go get my dad, okay? Don’t move! There’s glass all around you so if you move then you’ll just hurt yourself more! Please, try to calm down!”

_He’s telling me to stay where I am so that it’s obvious it was my fault this happened. He didn’t need to tell me I’d get hurt more by moving. I wouldn’t say it wasn’t my fault. I’ll own up to my mistake, I’ll face the consequences, I’ll-_

Chara stopped their train of thought as they realized they were crying. So now, in their worst moment yet, they’d even have enough tears running down their face to reveal it. Kusumu and his father had been kind about it in the past, but that was before they broke something. That was before Chara had done this. That was before they’d ruined everything. They didn’t even care, that it hurt, that they were having trouble breathing with the heavy post on their chest. All that broke was the lamp, but… Along with that, all their hopes and dreams had shattered. They deserved it. Maybe if they died right now- Maybe they should die right now- Maybe-

 

“Kusumu, you already got your things together to go to your mother’s house, but could you grab an extra pair of pajamas then go wait in the car?” A gruff voice pushed at the edges of Chara’s consciousness, sounding distant, more distant than it was. Down at the bottom of the ladder to the attic, then footsteps. He was coming up here. They winced preemptively as his steps evened out, then turned to a crawl, “Chara? Hey, it’s all right,” He reached over and lifted the pole for the lamp off of them, then picked them up and out of the mess of glass.

“I’m so, so sorry…” They muttered as they were picked up, “Where are you taking me…? Please…” They choked out through tears, “Don’t do anything but kill me. Don’t hurt me. Don’t do anything weird, please just-”

“I’m not going to kill you,” He told them gently, but in their confused state all they heard from that was that he was going to do something else. So they curled up as small as they could while being carried, and they shrieked. He was very calm about it, waiting until they were done to speak again, “Chara, I’m not going to do anything but get this glass out of you and patch you up. That lamp was only fifteen dollars, you know. I can get another one easily, or maybe one that won’t hurt so much if it falls over… one with a paper shade instead of that stained glass one. It won’t look as nice, but it also would be lighter and it wouldn’t shatter if it fell… I’m the one who should be sorry, for not thinking before I put a lamp like that in a little kid’s hideout.”

“You’re… not mad at me…?” They questioned, sniffling as they looked up at his face. It was kind, gentle, there wasn’t the slightest hint of anger there, “But why? I messed up. I broke something that belonged to you. I did something horrible.”

“I don’t know what your parents are teaching you, but breaking something accidentally then apologizing so profusely for it pretty much absolves you of guilt. Well, unless it’s something really expensive, then you’d probably just have to replace it for the person it belonged to. It’s not a big deal at all,” He set them down in the bathroom before turning to get tweezers, rubbing alcohol, and a bunch of bandaids from the medicine cabinet.

“If I break anything at home then I can’t go to school the next day. Well, unless it’s a Friday. Today’s a Friday. They’re even meaner on Fridays because then I have the whole weekend to get better…” They explained, turning their hands over in their lap in front of themself, “But don’t tell anyone I said that. I’m not supposed to tell anybody if they’re mean to me. If they find out I told, I think that they’d find some way to make every second of my life absolutely miserable, sir…”

“That’s quite the pickle you’re in, Chara,” He frowned as he started getting the glass shards out of their skin, “It sounds like you really need protective services to check out your house, but who knows what your other relatives might do, if your parents are really so bad, or what sort of friends they might have to get back at you with? And if they happen to notice the investigators arriving or are out at the time, and avoid them, they’d know right away that you told somebody…” He looked honestly distraught as he worked through these thoughts, “You know, they always tell you kids that adults have all the answers, but the truth is we’re just as confused as you are. I have no idea how to solve this, and believe me, I want to, but the most that I can do considering the situation is at least get you away from them for the weekend…”

“What do you mean?” Chara questioned as Kusumu’s father finished patching them up, then lifted them again and took them out to his car, putting them in the backseat next to Kusumu with nothing but a quiet and knowing smile before he closed the door and got into the driver’s seat, and it dawned on them as they looked between Kusumu and his father, exclaiming a bit too enthusiastically, “Ah, are you kidnapping me?”

“Mmhm! That’s right!” Kusumu nodded, grinning at them, “I wanted you to meet my mom, but Dad always said it would be too hard to get permission for you to come with us for the weekend. After I told him what you said when the lamp fell on you, though, he decided it was more important to make you happy and safe than to get permission.”

“And the things they said after you left, Kusumu, just made it even more clear. I don’t care if I get some jail time for this, though I doubt parents like those would even bother putting out a report on Chara,” His father grumbled, and Chara just stared at the back of the seat in front of them with awe. He seemed genuinely upset with the way that Chara had been treated their whole life, almost as if… it didn’t make sense, for something as inhuman as they’d been led to believe they were, to be treated differently from any other child.

The mood lightened as the drive went on, and by the time they’d been on the road for half an hour Chara and Kusumu were wreaking havoc in the backseat, as children were often known to do. It wasn’t quite to the extent of singing ‘99 bottles of beer on the wall’, since neither of them knew it yet, but it was still… well, cacophonous. Kusumu’s father could put up with it, though. It was almost a nicer drive than usual, seeing as near-silence with just the radio could never be as heartwarming as the sound of children being good friends. It wasn’t that he and Kusumu were on bad terms, of course, but a parent and a child can only chat for so long before they run out of things to talk about.

Children, on the other hand… well, Chara and Kusumu didn’t quiet down until arrival at the house, at which point Kusumu immediately hopped out of the car and opened the door on the other side, dragging Chara into the house by their wrist. They didn’t protest, realizing by now that Kusumu, in all of his brightness, could never possibly mean ill to them. So they were gladly dragged inside the house, then positioned next to Kusumu in front of a very tall and well-dressed woman, “Mom!”

“Kusumu!” She greeted him in a similar fashion, chuckling as she leaned down to eye level with Chara, the taller of the pair, “And you, you must be Chara? My son told me all about you. He said that you were the first friend he made when he got to school, and also the best one he’s ever had. He’s always going on about that, really, so it’s wonderful to finally meet you!”

“It’s nice to meet you too!” Chara nodded, grinning, but then faltered and brought a hand up to their face, turning their chin down to stare blankly at the ground, but Kusumu moved quickly, tapping their chin to keep their face up.

“Chara, when you get that look in your eyes, it always means that you’re starting to feel bad about yourself again. I noticed that and now I need to make sure I never see it again-it’s fine that you aren’t wearing makeup, okay?”

“You’re beautiful just like this,” Kusumu’s mother added, petting their head gently, “It’s really hard to be a child, especially when other children can be so cruel… they track down any differences they can, then condemn them, and it’s the responsibility of adults to teach children not that bullying is wrong, but that being a mean or rude person is wrong. So many kids won’t even realize that when they’re mean to somebody for being different, it’s bullying, so teaching them against the word is awfully ineffective…”

“Well, you and his dad taught Kusumu very well!” Chara brightened up again, speaking earnestly as they turned and put their arms around their friend, “He could never be mean to anybody, and he’s the first person to ever want to be my friend even if I don’t look pretty around him…”

“That’s silly. If you’re pretty then you’re pretty all the time, and you are,” His mother continued, then stood up straight and leveled her words at her husband, who had just walked in, “So you finally got permission for them to come over here? I thought you couldn’t even have them spend one night, let alone several, in another state…”

“Well, about that…” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, “I didn’t exactly get permission. They were spending the afternoon with Kusumu before we left to drive here, and there was, uh… an incident, revealing some things about their home life. I couldn’t very well hear the sort of things they said, then bring them back to such a miserable place right away…”

“Oh…” She frowned, crouching down again and putting her hands on Chara’s shoulders, “Mean children are one thing, but mean parents are another. I’m sure they’ve been putting you down your entire life, even before you got these scars… how… how did you get the scars, anyway?”

-  
“Mom! Mom, what’s for dinner? It smells really yummy, I love it when you cook! What is it?” Chara was asking for possibly the fifth time that day, what was for dinner; but, their mother had let it slip that she was cooking tonight rather than ordering takeout, and Chara had gotten far too excited to not want to know with all their heart.

“You little brat… can’t you see that I’m busy? You’ll find out what dinner is when it’s time to eat, don’t ask me something like that while I’m cooking. Why don’t you go bother your father instead?” She’d hissed in response, not even turning away from the stove at all, though there was nothing actively cooking at that moment; she was just reading a magazine while the sauce simmered and she waited for the water to boil.

“But… But Mom, I just wanted to know what we’re eating… because I love your food… I love you-” Chara protested, trying to let their feelings reach her despite the harsh response. They knew that she didn’t like their father, after all, they knew that she was trying her best and they knew that she wasn’t the one who thought up the idea of calling Chara a thing rather than a person. She was just the one who went along with it. A lesser evil, and if Chara had to love somebody, she was the better choice, right?

“Oh, shut up, Chara! I don’t care what you think about my cooking, or me!” She whirled around, dropping her magazine on the stove. It caught fire against one of the burners, so she picked it up again immediately, waving it in Chara’s direction before tossing it into the sink and looking down on her child with disdain

“M-Mom?” Chara took a few steps back, now afraid. They’d thrown their mother into a rotten mood now, hadn’t they? Tears were welling up in their eyes as they moved away from this fearful thing that had taken the place of their beloved mother.

“I told you to _leave_ me alone! Get out of here!” When, after a moment, Chara didn’t budge, their mother turned to the stove and grabbed the pot of water which had just boiled, breathing heavily as she flung it towards them, expecting them to move out of the way, to run off somewhere, but they just stood there, taking a full facefull of boiling water. Their mother stared for a moment, trying to calm down as she got over the shock and anger that Chara hadn’t moved. They were crying, but still hadn’t gone anywhere as their face blistered. They needed a hospital, but how could their mother explain this? She wouldn’t, hiding her regret with more cruel words, delivered in a much more level fashion, “...There, now you know. I’m making pasta. Are you happy now? What more do you want?” She frowned, then said, sneering, “I love you too.”

“...What does love mean?” They asked, and received no answer. So they ran away and hid their face, and gritted their teeth through the pain until they fell asleep, missing dinner. That was the last night that their mother ever cooked anything. It was always, from that point forward, what their father brought home. And, as always, Chara only got the cheapest menu options in the smallest portions. Just enough to live on. No more.

They didn’t want to remember this.  
They didn’t want to remember when their own mother couldn’t tell them the meaning of love.  
-  
“...I’m clumsy. I was trying to make instant noodles. I dropped them on my face from the microwave…” They couldn’t lie, but this wasn’t quite a lie. They had done that, it just wasn’t the source of the scars. God, microwaves sucked. That was not the only time they’d gotten a microwave-related injury. They hated them. Instant noodles were better dry anyway.

“Well, it’s all right if you don’t want to tell me, I can only assume…” She sighed, “That it was one of them, who did this to you. It must have been awful, so I won’t try to dig up those memories. It’s probably for the better you forget, honestly.”

“Yeah,” Chara nodded slightly, then turned to Kusumu, “Your mom is really nice too. I’m almost jealous but that would be rude of me.”

“Well,” She chuckled before her son could even respond to that, turning to walk into another room, “After that drive, you must be hungry! I don’t usually cook when it’s just for myself, but when my family’s here, I have some fun. Having a guest too, is just even more of an excuse,” She strode into the kitchen, “I’m making pasta!”

-

“Where in Hell’s name were you!?” A loud and sharp tone greeted Chara the very second they got in the door upon arriving home; Kusumu’s father had offered to walk them to the door, but they’d refused, not wanting to incur their own father’s wrath on anybody but themself. Besides, weren’t those two going on a visit back to Indonesia come Tuesday? They had to get their packing and preparations done. Reluctantly, he had let them go.

“A better place,” Chara said softly, shrugging. They didn’t want to give it away, to implicate their friend and his family, so they gave the most vague answer they could. The home of Kusumu’s mother, that was better. Much better.

“‘A better place’? That’s funny, cause you know, that’s exactly where your mother went too,” He smirked, clapping a hand to their shoulder, and a shivering pang of fear shot through them. They clutched their hands to their chest, feeling that their pulse had very rapidly gotten up to a breakneck pace, and they felt full of a profound fear as their father led them into their parents’ room, shoving them in and pointing at the bed.

Chara knew what they’d find, but they walked up to the king-sized bed anyhow, to the side their mother always slept on. She lay there, but when they put their hand out to touch her, she was cold. Frigid to the touch, room temperature. She lay on her side, and the side of her face which lay against the pillow had a purple tint to it. Chara stared at it for a good five minutes, face blank but pulse and breathing giving away their distress. Rather than say anything, their father pulled the comforter back, and the sheets with it, revealing dried bloodstains all over both objects and a wound through their mother’s back and stomach.

“Oi. You,” He didn’t even use their name as he got their attention, but they turned to look at him anyway as he lifted a knife from the mattress and handed it to them, “I want you to hold onto this. It’s the knife I used to kill your mother. If you have a conscience, maybe it’ll remind you not to pull something like that again. Without you here to take my urges out on, terrible things happen. You’re the one who killed her. You did, by disappearing like that.”

“No…” They muttered, staring at the knife they’d been handed, which they clutched so tight that their knuckles were turning white. A tear of theirs dripped onto the polished steel and slid off to the carpet below, rinsing away a slight bit of the blood caked onto it, “Knives are for cooking and for cutting plants. Not killing. No…” Their words earned them a harsh slap across the cheek, which knocked them to the ground. Their father moved to stand over them, and they looked up at him, fear showing now in every aspect of their demeanor and body language.

“Tell me now. Who is it. Who killed. Your mother.” He breathed over them, and they relaxed their grip on the knife, holding it gently in front of their face and looking at it through half-lidded eyes, a wave of calm coming over them. A survival skill passed down through the gene pool through all time was the ability to, in the case of a situation so extreme that fight or flight is completely eliminated as a possible solution, to return to a state of assessing that situation in a level-headed and practically emotionless manner.

“It’s me, Chara,” They whispered, turning the knife over in their hands before faltering and dropping it, not even flinching as it fell onto their face and managed to stick about a millimeter into their cheek, “I’m the one who killed her.”

“Good, now,” He stepped away, letting them get back to their feet, slow as they did, “When you were missing, your dear sweet mother and I, we tore the place apart trying to figure out where you could be hiding, and you know what we found?” He held up a plastic bag, “Now, I already ate all the chocolate bars out of it-”

“Please don’t take that away!” Chara shouted, voice desperate as their tears finally came, choked up and practically screeching as they started pounding their fists on their father’s leg, having already dropped the knife, “I need it! I need it I need it I need it! You already took my mom away from me! You took my chances at happiness a long time ago! You took everything I’ve ever had! Leave me with something! Please! Something!” They sobbed, collapsing to the ground.

“Wow. You’re really desperate for this, aren’tcha? Well, somebody with such a shitty face would. I’m not going to take it away. In fact, why don’t you and me sit next to your mom’s vanit here and you can put some of it on right now? It’d be nice to have you all dolled up, especially now that your mother’s gone and we can do it with the lights on,” He snickered as he reached down and grabbed their arm between their wrist and elbow, dragging them over to the vanity and sitting down on the seat himself, putting them on his lap and spilling the makeup out onto the vanity in front of them.

Chara reached out and shakily did their makeup, hands trembling as their father stroked their hair and whispered unintelligibly against their neck. They did it as slowly as they could, knowing that completing the task would mean an even worse nightmare, but they could only stall for so long before there was nothing left to do, and their father picked them up, arms nothing like those of another, better father that they knew; he placed them into the bed, right next to their mother’s corpse, and hovered over them, grinning.

“You’re lucky, you know. Most people would just throw something like you out with the trash,” He sneered as he leaned down towards them, one hand already holding their hair in a deathgrip as they lay beneath him, “But, out of the goodness of my heart, not me. I love you, Chara.”

_Oh. Maybe that’s why Mom got so upset with me back then. I was mistaken on what love means. Of course. That’s right. Love means._

_**Love means, Level Of ViolencE.** _


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by peachypasta as always! She apologizes for the delay, and please don't hold it against her! Future delays can just as easily be my fault, creative blocks are tough things!

_“Even when you felt trapped, you took notes and achieved the end.”_  
\-----------------------------

“Chara…? Are you okay? Chara? ...Chara!?” 

What was that voice?

Oh, right. Their teacher.

“I’m… fine…” They answered slowly, lifting their head only to notice that there was a worksheet on the desk in front of them, now stained with tears that, with their head dipped, had dropped directly onto the paper rather than taking the long road down their face. They quickly and carefully wiped their eyes, not wanting to let it ruin their makeup, although their father had given them access to their mother’s more expensive things as soon as he’d finished disposing of the corpse. The mascara was waterproof… perfect for somebody who cried as much as they did, they supposed.

“You don’t seem fine, you were crying over your math worksheet. I know math can be hard, but it’s not that hard, you’ve always been an okay student… and you were absent yesterday, too. Do you need to talk to the guidance counselor?” Mr. Danielson was leaning down next to their desk, concern knit across his face. He was really worried. Another good adult.

“No. I don’t. I don’t need to talk to a guidance counselor and I never will. I’m fine and everything is good,” They spoke through a haze, voice slow and soft and broken.

“So, do you want me to leave you alone?” He changed his approach, trying to get them to open up in some way or another. He’d been teaching for over a decade at this point, and in this school district he’d seen so many children in rotten situations who were unwilling to speak about it that he could easily tell, and had a number of techniques in mind to try and help them.

“That’s a wonderful idea!” Chara nodded, blank face splitting into a grin as they started laughing, laughing in a clear display of traumatic hysterics as they started to cry again, hunching their shoulders and letting their whole body move in tremors and shakes as they laughed like this, bringing their hands up to cover their face before their classmates saw the foundation wash away. If they were ever going to erase the idea of their scars from the memory of the class, they had to do it now, before anyone got any older.

“Okay, that settles it. I’m taking you to-” Mr. Danielson started, but was cut off midsentence by Chara jumping out of their seat and shrieking.

“No!” Was all that they’d said when they stood up, before running out of the classroom. Where could they go that nobody would look for them? Where was a place that nobody would think to look? The library at the school was technically open all the time, but usually students only actually went there on their ‘library day’ which was once every two weeks. Nobody would possibly think to look there… if Chara could say one good thing about themself, it was that they were actually not so bad at hiding, and could even instruct others in the fine art.

Upon arriving at the library, they knew that they were in the clear, though there were a few other students there. They scanned for somewhere empty to go and sit, but instead their gaze fell on a group of kids who seemed to be grouped around one, and they could easily tell that the group wasn’t exactly a friendly one. They looked to be first graders… well, even in one of their worst moods ever, Chara couldn’t just stand by and allow this to happen; they approached and got the attention of the kids, but before they could even offer up a piece of their mind the kids ran off.

They didn’t hear what the group said as they ran away, but they could guess, and the waterworks just started up again. They tried wiping the tears away, but it was too much, “I’m pathetic…” They muttered to themself.

“Hm?” The kid who’d been being picked on moved closer to them, then smiled softly and put a hand on their shoulder, “I’d cry too, if they did something like that… you were trying to help me, right? I’m sorry it sort of backfired… running away and calling you a monster, I should just kill them.”

“Don’t kill anybody, killing is bad,” Chara protested, shaking their head, “They’re right, anyway.”

“Hmm… no,” He said simply, then led Chara over to a corner where they could both sit down and pushed his glasses up his nose, looking over them then frowning, “You’re… a sad person, but when you smile, it lights up the entire room. You have a few good friends, but none of them are here for you right now, and you’re experiencing a very dark moment in your life. You’re contemplating suicide and the only thing holding you back is the thought that it isn’t normal for kindergarteners to feel that way, but what should be holding you back is the thought of those friends who care about you and would do anything to help you if they knew how badly you were hurting. You’re in an abusive household and recently lost one of your only rafts of support, probably through a death, possibly through foul play, which also made the abuse intensify. You’re experiencing verbal, physical, and sexual abuse at home, which only makes teasing from kids at school worse.”

Chara blinked.

“Eheh… Sorry,” He chuckled nervously, “I must have been totally off the mark there? I… watch a lot of Criminal Minds, I want to be a profiler when I grow up… I have this habit of trying to profile everyone I meet, even if it’s bad of me to do so, it upsets a lot of people and gets me into a lot of trouble but I just can’t help it…”

“No… you’re right,” Chara nodded slowly, “Too right… how did you do something like that?”

“I could tell, by looking at you, and the way that you act. There’s a lot of little things about people to pick up on, you know. Longsleeves suggest you’re hiding injuries, a turtleneck suggests you’re hiding hickies, and the impact those kids’ words had on you and your belief that they were correct clearly gives away the fact you grew up in an environment that would lead you to believe something like that,” He nodded slowly, then turned to them, “Can I guess your name?”

“Hm…?” They made a small confused noise, but then nodded a bit, still subdued, “Sure.”

“Well, abusive parents will often choose names that they and society will view as absolutely meaningless. Going off of your last name, it would be most sensible that your name be John or Jane; I’m not sure what your gender is, which would determine more specifically, but I’m assuming that based on your last name and your parents’ clear disdain and lack of care for you, your name is either John Doe or Jane Doe, turning you into a walking joke, a name with utterly no meaning whatsoever…”

“My last name is… Doe?” Chara questioned, tilting their head.

“I read through the registry. Because your parents didn’t fill out the correct forms, they were only allowed to put your last name below your photograph. You didn’t even know your last name? Really?” He questioned, leaning forward and frowning, “What about role call?”

“Well, my first name is unique enough that they never needed to call my last name,” Chara spoke softly, tilting their head to the side and almost smirking a bit, though it was infused with bitterness, “It’s funny, actually. I think that, knowing me as I am now, if I were a boy or a girl I would in fact be John Doe or Jane Doe… But I’m not. And as far as I’m concerned, I have no family name, either. Ah… if I were a boy, my mother said, I’d have been named Eugene. Were I a girl… Guinevere. If I were a boy or a girl, they would care about me. But I’m not.”

“Is your name… Joey? That’s gender neutral and noncommital-”

“That’s implying they cared enough to consider me human. That’s implying they’d give a damn about… gender neutral,” They froze, gripping the table in front of them, “Implying he would. My mother… would have at least given me a real name, if she had the chance. She only hated me because my father does. Because his hatred became something disgusting. Because my existence… stole away the image of a good man, from my father.”

“In that case, I… have no idea what your name could be…” He muttered, looking away, “I’m sorry, I got full of myself, I-”

“No, it’s not that,” They forced a smile as they looked at him, but that forlorn sadness never left their eyes, “You did well. Anyone else… you’d succeed. The problem here, is that you could only ever think about names for humans. You wouldn’t guess a human to be named something like Spot, or Object, after all. My name’s like that. A name that’s really only fit for… a monster.”

“Is your name… Chara? Short for Character?”

“Heh, I knew you’d get it. You’re plenty smart, for a first grader,” They smirked, looking up to meet his gaze, “It’s not pronounced like that, though. It’s Chara, more like… you added an A to the end of Chair. It’s even worse. Dad can tell people it’s short for Character, which is kind of sweet, but it when it comes down to it, he just used a double meaning as an excuse to name me after an inanimate object. That’s what I am, anyway. So what’s your name?”

“Ecgbeorht,” He said unflinchingly. It sounded like he was vomiting.

“...Eh?” Chara tilted their head.

“You’re smart… for a kindergartener, but I figured that would stump you. You can just call me Egg. That’s some weird old english name… I kind of get what you were saying, about your dad seeing you as an inanimate objects. My parents think that if they just try hard enough to show me intelligent things, that I’ll magically become a prodigy… but, they’re wrong,” He turned his head, letting his rather long hair fall in his face, “I’m smart for a first grader, but… all my grades on my tests and things are through the floor. I’m only good at things I care about, and I don’t care about math, or history, or any of that,” He pulled a notebook from his bag, handing it to Chara, “Take this. I was supposed to take notes on schoolwork, but I wrote a bunch of useless stuff in there instead… if my parents found out I wrote things like that, they’d be even angrier than if they found out I lost the notebook. That’s what I’ll tell them,” 

“Why give it to me? Why not just lose it for real?” Chara asked, and he just chuckled a bit, patting their head, “Answer me!”

“Well, it’s because, the stuff I wrote is useless for me, because I have it all inside my head. And it’s useless to my parents, because it’s not what they want me to be. If you’re a chair, Chara, then I’m a lump of clay… we have to stick together, and I think that if there’s anyone that notebook won’t be useless to, it’s you,” He nodded, then stood up, “My class is leaving the library, so I gotta go… you were skipping class here, right? Well, I think it’s a good plan that you stay away from your classroom till you calm down. Guidance… will always call your parents when they’re too worried, and no amount of begging and pleading can convince them otherwise. Stay here and read my notebook until you’re completely calm.”

They nodded slowly, watching as Egg, as he wanted to be called, walked out of their view before they opened the notebook they’d been handed, looking over its contents. Written nicely, and neatly, in colored pen, was poetry. Poetry and quotes and, Chara realized as they continued to read, it was color coded. Purple things were things that Egg had thought up himself, blue were quotes from books or famous figures that he liked, green were lines from songs and light blue was lines from poems. Yellow was something they couldn’t interpret; maybe quotes from court cases? And orange was quotes from movies and games.

(Author’s note; I attempted to actually color these quotes for ao3 but it proved too difficult.)

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words cause lasting emotional trauma,” was something that particularly stood out to Chara, a perspective they hadn’t considered, having been fed the original version of that statement so many time. They often thought, how dare they. How dare they be harmed by the things people said, but this resonated with them. Of course. They’d been victim to sticks and stones and words and they knew all of them hurt, hurt so horribly… and they began to calm down, thinking this and continuing through the book.

Ah, but before they realized, they’d been entranced and come across the very end of the notebook, where there was one unfamiliar color. Red.

“You did well.”

That was all it said there, on the final page of the notebook, in red pen, and Chara wasn’t crying. No, for the first time that day they didn’t cry over something which touched them emotionally, they just smiled. These words, which they’d only spoken a bit over an hour ago… had been effectively turned around to convey meaning to them instead, to be aimed at them, and to calm their aching heart and frayed nerves. They did well. They tried their best.

They survived.

In perspective, they realized; it had nothing to do with them at all. They had to let go of their guilt and find gratitude instead. Their father… if they had been home, when he’d killed their mother, wasn’t there much more of a chance that they’d have been murdered too? It was their birth, their existence which had sent him into such a state. Revealed the true darkness in the heart of a man who was once kind and upstanding, so it stands to reason that their presence, in a moment of weakness and rage, could only serve to incite him more.

They did well.  
They did.

They’d escaped death and had fun while doing it, they’d avoided being a tragedy headline in some newspaper because while it’s easy to say a wife disappeared, a child is not so simple. They’d gotten away, just this once, they’d done what they always did best. Survived. Stayed determined through the worst odds, and they could have asked to go home. Could have panicked at the idea of their punishment when they returned from the visit with Kusumu’s mother, but missing one Monday for this pain was better than missing every Monday from that day forward. They could not have saved their mother.

They did well in saving themself. That’s right. They said words which made Egg happy and he, in return, used those same words coupled with his unique knowledge of their situation to give them exactly what they needed. The pain they’d endured from their father, it was worse than dying, but dying wasn’t what was at stake here. Disappearing was, and what he’d said, that they should be concerned over death for the sake of the people who cared…

Maybe it was selfish, but Chara didn’t want that. They’d prefer not to reach a day where the town, this town, was without them. They couldn’t think of anyone who’d be better off without them, anyway; they didn’t have that sort of effect on people. A few people might miss them, but it would subside. Their disappearance would leave no impact on the town but some mourning, and if their continued presence was on such a low wavelength, there was no reason to forsake that. All they needed to do was keep going, existing, and trying to keep their life going.

They steeled themself, clutching the notebook to their chest as they stood up, face stoic again. Not happy, but not upset, not unstable. The perfect model of how they’d been, in the past, and how they would be tomorrow. No, they couldn’t go back to class today, not in this state. Reassured as they were, they were a smart child after all. One jeer from classmates could send them spiralling. Allison and Philomena seemed to be absent today, or at least nowhere they could reach. Kusumu had left for his visit back to Indonesia; they were too alone, too without support, to turn to that class with their face laid bare.

To keep trying, but to move with intelligence, that was what Egg had taught them, and even if they never saw him again, they were going to take that advice to heart. They snuck out of the building and walked back home. Their father wouldn’t know they skipped, he didn’t get home till dinnertime anyway, which was after Chara would be home regardless. They went up to their room, and they stuffed the notebook between their mattress and the bedframe. They didn’t have to worry, anymore, about hiding things in their bed. With the master bedroom one occupant short, why would their father ever turn to this tiny one, after all?

That wasn’t an upside. It was a trade. One hiding spot, the one with their lost chocolate bars, had been forsaken. This was only fair. And, maybe, each night from this point on would be miserable. Of course, it might be. Maybe every moment of their life would have the feeling of Hell infused in it, but that wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was that they had the bravery to face the days ahead of them, the patience to handle it for a long time and the perseverance not to give in to thoughts of letting go; the kindness they were never shown, and the integrity to admit that they still care about their own sense of self after a childhood without one.

And a feeling, deep in their heart, that there had to be a form of revenge out there somewhere. Some sort of payback, divine or otherwise… karma, perhaps? Ah… a feeling that justice waited somewhere out there, and their father would pay for making them hurt, for using them as if they were only a tool. They knew now.

Something about that notebook… made them feel invincible. Not unable to be harmed, but unable to be destroyed. It gave them the strength to pick themself up, to avoid being kicked when they were down, and with it and those words, and the knowledge of the people who did care… of their friends…

They were filled with determination.


	7. Chapter 7

_”Your surefire accuracy brought an end to the mayhem.”_  
\-------------------

“Oh, my God, Chara,” Ah, the first interaction of the morning, and of course, it was with one of these people, “What did you do with your hair? It looks spectacular!”

“Hm?” They tilted their head, lifting a hand to twirl said hair and shrugging a bit, “I didn’t do anything, actually. I thought when I was on vacation that it was just the humidity, but it just sort of stayed this way when I got back Friday night… I’ve showered since then, and it’s pretty brisk here, but it just won’t stop puffing up.”

“Well, it’s a good look for you! Really accentuates how skinny you are,” The girl grinned at them, holding out double thumbs-up, “So tell me, what diet did you go on to end up this size, huh Chara? Was it the coffee diet? No no, ice and lentils? I’m so jealous, I can never have the resolve to lose weight!”

“I didn’t diet at all, this is just how much I weigh,” Chara said simply, then suddenly felt an arm around their neck. Well, more like across their shoulders, but in any case, it was uncomfortable. They turned to see who it was. Oh, her… they didn’t remember her name. There were a lot of people they hung around lately whose names they forgot.

“Come on, Chara! We talked about this before we left! Did that trip to Hawaii fry your brain cells? I get that you had fun-”

“I didn’t have fun.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry. I did. Continue.”

“As I was saying! Just because you go on vacation, just means that you especially can’t slack when you get back! That girl is just a wannabe, she’ll never make it into our group, especially not if she thinks it appropriate to go asking our,” She tightened her grip on Chara a bit, feigning exhaustion with a breathy voice, “Most _vulnerable_ member, for advice on how to get in!”

“Sorry. I guess that I just still don’t quite understand this whole… clique thing,” They muttered, brushing themself off once the girl let go of them and fixing their scarf. It was a strange article of clothing… They’d long since stopped needing to go to the lost and found for their outfits, thanks to Kusumu’s mother, but they’d still always stuck to essentials before falling in with this particular crowd. Suddenly, fashion was the most important thing, and scarves which provided literally no warmth were essential pieces. Well, at least it still hid their neck well enough, which was particularly necessary after their father’s vacation that past week. They were there, of course, but they wouldn’t consider it a vacation for them.

“Chara,” She groaned loudly, looking up at the ceiling, “Sophomore year of high school, and you _still_ don’t get it? Where were you all of junior high?” She questioned, then turned and pointed at Chara, pushing a finger against their chest, “That’s right. Junior high, sweetheart, you were holed up with a bunch of _nobodies_! You should be eternally grateful that we rescued you, I mean, honestly. You were this diamond, stuck in with the garbage!”

“I, I wouldn’t call them garbage,” They protested, holding their arms close to their chest.

“Maybe that’s an overstatement, but come on. What was a cute girl like you doing, hanging around with that crew? The gay kid, bullshit boy genius? Oh, and not to mention the other girls there. Entry-level pedophile and her little sister? The biggest dyke this side of Westfield High? You don’t fit in with them at all, honestly. Aren’t you happy to be an elite now?”

“I mean, yes, but…” They frowned. This wasn’t like elementary school anymore, they couldn’t stand up for their friends too much and they couldn’t stand up for themself. If people wanted to think they were a girl, then fine. They could handle that, but… hearing her say this about their best friends was grating on them. None of what she said made any sense or was even an effective insult. If she was going to be rude to their real friends, the least she could do was say something of substance…

“Chara, come on, why are you pulling on my dick?” She rolled her eyes, grabbing them around the neck again and pulling them in another direction, “Anyway! We’re ditching class today, all of us. Gonna go smoke up at the old bridge,” She snickered, “Bet your other friends would say the place is haunted. Lame.”

“What if I don’t want to ditch class? Or smoke?” Chara questioned despite already knowing the answer to that question.

“Why wouldn’t you? I mean, unless you’re still a square at heart, but if that’s the case we just gotta fix it,” She laughed, and was already dragging Chara out of the building and out to the parking lot, where she pushed Chara into the backseat and sat shotgun herself, pointing at the driver, “This here’s Michael. He’s a junior, got his license earlier this year, he’s gonna be driving us in this,” She hesitated, pulling a hunk of half-chewed gum off the dashboard, “Charming vehicle…”

“Yeah, she’s right about that,” Michael chuckled as he started to back up, making brief eye contact with Chara as he went, “So, what’s your name anyway? I can’t say I remember seeing you around school.”

“Michael, you don’t remember seeing anybody around school,” The girl rolled her eyes, “You don’t even _go_ to school, so of course you wouldn’t recognize her. This is Chara.”

“Chara, hm?” He questioned, then chuckled a bit as he turned his attention to driving, “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Chara. You seem like a very nice… person. So, Irina, where are we headed?”

“The old bridge today. The others are already up there, but nobody got the memo out to Chara here so I had to come to school to fetch her,” Apparently Irina responded, pulling down the mirror in the sun visor to fix her hair in, “Or well, I guess you had to come fetch her, given that you’re the actual chauffeur in this situation…”

“Well, are you so sure that Chara wants to go with you?” Michael asked, raising an eyebrow and stopping the car, “It’s against my prerogative to bring anybody anywhere against their will, you know. If you’re tricking me, Irina…” He groaned and turned to look at Chara again, “Kiddo. Do you seriously want to go with her?”

“Of course she does,” Irina snapped at him, then shot a glare at Chara. They shrunk under her gaze, frowning. Of course, this was their fault. Once they ended up in a group like this one, there was no easy way to escape. No way at all to get out without serious consequences.

“...Yeah,” Chara agreed reluctantly, refusing to meet either gaze, as their answer was mutually unsatisfactory. It was a yes, against the thoughts of Michael, but a subdued one, against the wishes of Irina. The definition of compromise was that nobody got what they wanted out of it, anyway. Unfortunately, it seemed that Michael only had so much defiance in his heart, as he continued driving after Chara’s fearful answer had been given.

They remained silent for the duration of the trip, which was fine, because Irina filled that silence with inane chatter the entire time. Chara ignored it all and tuned her out, picking up on nothing but the fact that she was speaking; her tone and words were irrelevant, and they didn’t want to bother with hearing something like that. It was honestly, just pointless. They didn’t believe that they’d find meaning in a single word that a girl like this said.

It was awful for them to think this, they knew, and yet… they couldn’t help feeling as if they hated people like this. Yes, she was their supposed friend, but she didn’t act like a friend. Didn’t act like somebody that Chara wanted anything to do with, but then, it wasn’t as if they had a choice anymore. Once somebody in a social group like this decided on a new member, nobody’s feelings mattered. Chara just hoped they wouldn’t become too warped.

“Here you go. Get out,” Michael’s voice broke through the constant stream of Irina’s noise, and snapped Chara out of their thoughts while he was at it. The car was pulled over to the side of a street which seemed like it saw maybe five cars a week. Chara had never even been to this part of town before… perhaps it was, because when they were a child, they and their friends had said the old bridge must be haunted, but that was childish. They’d already given up that idea in junior high, and Irina had no right to claim their friends must still think the same.

“Get out? Eh? Come on Michael, aren’t you going to join us?” Irina sounded taken aback by the idea that he wasn’t going to come along, then leaned over and clutched his arm, “Come on…! Don’t you want to see what Chara’s like when she’s high? You’re always curious about what everyone else is like! You told me that it’s ‘fascinating how differently people can behave under the influence of the same substance’!”

“This is true, but, I still don’t believe that Chara’s doing this out of free will,” Michael shook his head, sighing, “I can’t do anything to stop you, Irina, but I’m not going to cooperate either. And… if anything happens to them, while they’re high, then you can bet that I’ll make you pay for doing that to them.”

“Eh…” Irina seemed to deflate as she looked up at Michael, face fallen and a little bit shaky, “You know what, Michael…? Why don’t you just go ahead and take Chara back to school…”

“That’s more like it. You have fun, Irina,” He chuckled, waving to her as she left the car, then started it again to take Chara back to the school, “Sorry about that. You’ll probably be a little bit late for first period, I hope it’s nothing important…”

“Oh no, it’s not,” Chara shook their head, “Critical thinking… I don’t have to do anything in that class, nobody does. It’s an easy A for people who aren’t good at other science classes, is all it is. I can afford a tardy… well, I can afford anything. I’m already on credit reduction, more can’t hurt… I already know I’ll have to repeat my senior year.”

“Hm? Well, what makes you absent so often? You really don’t seem to be the sort of person to go ditching class for no reason, and I haven’t seen you with Irina before, so you must be a new addition to her posse. She can’t have made you skip before, at this point,” He questioned as he drove, surprisingly safely. For somebody who was apparently known for ditching class and smoking with the preps, he sure obeyed traffic laws.

“I’m often in a state where I can’t go to school, is all, and I can’t get a doctor’s note for it. Not to mention my dad dragged me along on some trip to Hawaii last week…” They shrugged, crossing their arms in the backseat.

“Can’t get a doctor’s note? Well, wouldn’t that mean that it’s nothing too serious?” He questioned, sounding somewhat concerned.

“I don’t know if any doctor would give a note for this sort of thing, but it is serious. Of course, even if they would, it’s irrelevant. Dad would never let me go to a doctor,” They turned their head to the side and sighed, “It would reveal too much, after all.”

“Bastard!” Michael shouted suddenly, slamming his hands down on the steering wheel in front of him and honking the horn. Chara jumped in surprise, but it was… a bit delayed. The sound had already stopped by the time they reacted to it. In almost a decade, their reaction times still hadn’t improved much at all.

“Are, are you okay?” They questioned as they composed themself, grabbing the back of the seat in front of them and leaning forward to try and see his face. Much to their surprise, he looked calm, if rather grim.

“Oh, oh yeah. I’m just great,” He chuckled bitterly, glaring at the road ahead, “It’s just, hearing about that sort of thing always gets me fired up. I can’t understand how people manage, to get away with shit like that. People who would do such disgusting things,” He lifted one hand from the steering wheel and made a pistol shape with his fingers, calm, much more level and a million times more threatening than Chara had ever seen that gesture used, “Really should just die.”

“What’s up with you anyway…?” Chara questioned, tilting their head, but their voice was not upset or accusatory. Only curious, “I mean, you’re hanging out with that bunch, and apparently you’re sort of a delinquent, but then you go and say something like that…”

“Heh, well, I guess I sort of like to think of myself as an everyday superhero, you know? Like, an ally of justice… it’s totally possible, to believe in a better world, even if you aren’t the greatest person around, you know. Humanity might look at me and say, that there kid, he’s no good, but I’ll look right back at humanity and remind them of the priests and the teachers and the parents who hurt other people, because who cares? Who cares if you’re not an upstanding citizen, as long as you try not to bring harm to anyone else? The good people of this world, that we’re supposed to respect, they’re the ones who really deserve that hatred…” He trailed off, then smiled and… practically giggled, a bit, “Heh, sorry! I got a bit carried away there. Some people call me the king of melodrama. You can ignore me.”

“Well, I don’t want to ignore you. I don’t want to ignore anybody,” Chara shrugged, “I’d have to agree with you about all that, really. When I was little, I was always told that I was worthless… and it was kids who were just as unpopular as me, who made me realize that maybe that wasn’t the truth. The world’s against me, and it’s against you, and for some reason it lets people continue hurting others…”

“Well, if you think that, and if it wasn’t popular kids who made you happy, then why are you hanging around with them?” He questioned, and they hesitated, “In fact, I just told you all about my worldviews, but I don’t really know anything about you except that your name is Chara and that you don’t think I’m crazy.”

“Mm, it’s not like I want to… I just don’t want to be bullied. I’m fine with being not popular, it’s fine as long as people are mean to me the way they are in high school. Not to my face, and that’s just fine, I wouldn’t mind knowing people said bad things about me as long as they left me alone, so I was fine, staying with my friends, but…” They sighed, “Irina got this idea in her head that I was a girl, and a perfect fit for her clique to boot, and before I knew it she pulled me in.”

“Yeah, I could tell right away that something was up. Chara… that’s not a name for a girl. No, that’s not a name for a human,” He chuckled a bit, still smiling, “But, isn’t that a nice thing? Humanity’s so rotten, it must be nice to dissociate from it. Reclaim that name for yourself.”

“I never really thought of it that way…” Chara mumbled, staring ahead, “Hey, we aren’t going to the school…”

“Well, you already said you’re in a hopeless state of credit reduction, so I figure you wouldn’t mind ditching as long as I could show you a good time in a more comfortable fashion than Irina and her group,” He shrugged, “If you really want to go to class, I can take you back there, but… I’m having fun talking to you. It’s not every day you meet somebody this interesting. Especially when you’re friends with the official prep squad.”

“Are you referring to me, meeting you?” They questioned, teasing, “Not that you’re wrong. Well, you don’t seem like a good fit for her group either, so what’s got you running around with them?”

“Well, I’m not so sure of that yet myself,” He laughed, “Who knows, really? She suckered me in, basically, but the thing is that there’s nothing keeping me from leaving. They’ve got no dirt on me and no way to get any, because I don’t really have any secrets. I guess they could report me for the police for truancy and drug possession? Ah, but that’d only put me out of commission for a little while. Maybe I’m just waiting…”

“Waiting for what?”

“To kill them, of course!” He said brightly, then glanced back to see Chara staring at him blankly, “That’s a weird reaction. I’m kidding, though! As far as I can tell, none of them have done something so scummy that they ought to die… though, if they did, I wouldn’t hesitate, and the lot of them know this,” He sighed a bit, “But then, I think I’m just waiting to see if any of them cross that line… and besides. Irina doesn’t want me gone, but they’re all scared of me. Rightfully so. I’m a messenger of karma, handing out punishments in perfect proportions to wrongdoings… and it looks like I was able to rescue you today, too, just by threatening her with one of my infamous pieces of payback.”

“A messenger of karma…” Chara trailed off, “Ah, I think that I’ve heard that before…”

“Well, of course you have. I’ve been saying it since elementary school, after all. And you’re Chara. The only person who my buddy Egg wasn’t able to guess their name on his first try, and the only person that Egg ever let read his journal,” Michael explained, grinning, “I had to wonder if it was you at first, but it looks like I was right.”

“You’re… Egg’s friend? But…” Chara frowned, “Egg’s been coming to the hideout since I was in second grade, and he was in third. He never mentioned anything about you…”

“Of course he didn’t. We were good friends, but I’m not a friend to brag about. Why would anyone wanna tell his other friends about his ultraviolent childhood friend? I went to a different elementary school, anyway, and we haven’t talked since sixth grade… course, that’s my fault. He tried, but I correctly figured that I’d soon be coming into a spot of trouble with the law, given that my habits grew right alongside me. Didn’t want to get him in trouble along with me.”

“You say ultraviolent, but you’re driving so cautiously, and you could tell that I really didn’t want to go with Irina. I mean. I can’t say I cared much about the drugs, but I’d prefer to stay sober around that group of people…” They explained simply, smiling a bit, “So at least, if you are, then you can channel that violence pretty well unto people who deserve it.”

“I know, right?” He grinned as he parked his car, “Nobody else but Egg’s ever understood that. As for keeping sober around them, that’s a good plan. You ever taken a look at prep schools and prestigious colleges? The rich kids with rebellious habits are always the sort of people to not even make the connection that they’re doing something wrong, when they’ve got somebody pretty in front of ‘em.”

“Where… is this?” Chara asked, looking around; it seemed to be a dead end road, surrounded by some woodlands. They felt as if this was the sort of situation in which people ought to be afraid, but they didn’t feel any fear at all.

“This, is Mount Ebott,” He said, still smiling widely as he stepped out of the car, and Chara followed suit, walking up next to him.

“Don’t they say, something like… People who go to Mount Ebott, will disappear?” Chara questioned, for some reason suddenly believing in the urban legend they’d been told.

“The exact wording is… Humans who go to Mount Ebott will disappear. So as long as you and me, Chara, we decide that we aren’t human… we’ll be perfectly safe,” His explanation was somewhat shoddy, but Chara was okay with that. If they disappeared, after all, they wouldn’t really get the chance to think about it, right? If they were to be killed, or to stop existing, or…

Well, it would be terrible to be kidnapped.

When that thought crossed their mind, they felt almost as if they were being watched, like there were eyes staring right into their heart from across in the woods, “Michael, that’s all well and good, but you know. Urban legends are myths, but if they’re known well enough, then the kind of people that you hate, could decide to make it real,” They explained slowly, backing up slowly to get into the car again, not taking their eyes off the spot in the woods where it felt like they were being stared at from.

“Hm?” He questioned, but then looked out into the woods and frowned, “Well, I used to come out here all the time to clear my head, it’s a nice walk, but… you might be right. It does look like there might be somebody in the brush there,” He followed suit to get back in the driver’s seat, then drove away quickly (although still following the speed limit) and sighed, “Sorry about that. I thought you might like to go somewhere that most people are too scared to, but… you were right. There was definitely _someone_ there, and even if he could have been harmless, he could have been… Not harmless.”

“Yeah…” Chara nodded slowly, “That’s how disgusting people think, anyway. They don’t want to be found out. Murderers… they want attention, sometimes, want people to at least know that killing is happening, but kidnappers don’t want anyone knowing. If you disappeared there, it would just strengthen the legend. Nobody would want to go looking for you there, and they probably wouldn’t even consider that there could be a real person behind it…”

“And the type of people who’d go out to somewhere like that anyway, are the type of people who wouldn’t be missed by anyone if they disappeared,” Michael frowned, tapping the steering wheel with his fingers. Chara leaned forward and checked the clock on the car.

“Hey. If we can kill four more hours, then I can take you somewhere cool. Somewhere that’d be nice, and not dangerous,” They offered, tilting their head up to smile at him, “As for how we kill those four hours, why don’t I leave that up to you?”

“Hm,” He thought for a moment, then smiled back at them, “How about I treat you to lunch? I know a nice place about an hour away, and nobody’s going to think we’re truants if we’re that far away, since they won’t recognize either of us as being students,” He offered, and their smile only grew even more as they nodded, “But uh, let’s get one thing straight. This is totally platonic, okay? I’m not romantically interested in you.”

“Good! Because I’m not interested in you either, so if you were interested in me, that would just be absolutely awkward. I’m much more interested in friends than I am in a boyfriend!” They explained, still smiling so brightly at him. It had been a while, since they’d felt this way, felt like they were acquiring a real friend. They’d felt it only before, when they’d met and befriended everyone who now used the hideout at Kusumu’s place, which had become a bit small over the years with six people in it who were all getting bigger as time went on, but it was still nice and still cozy. It was a long time ago, when they met all of those friends… such that the memory of how nice it was, to make a real friend, had faded. 

“I’m glad,” Michael nodded, then glanced at them again, “Though, I have to admit. You have probably, the nicest smile that I’ve seen in my entire life.”

“Hm, it’s not so nice all the time,” They shrugged a bit, “I guess, if we’re going to be friends, I should tell you that this isn’t really what I look like. I’m wearing a whole lot of concealer and foundation, to start with. Maybe the makeup is why Irina thought I was a girl?”

“No, Irina just thought you were a girl because she hasn’t gotten it through her skull that anyone could be neither binary gender, and as far as she could figure you were a girl. I could tell right away, that you’re neither and you’re not making any effort to seem like one or the other,” He shrugged, “What, do you have chronic acne? That’s no big deal, it’ll clear up when you get older and you can hide it for now, like you’re doing.”

“Mm, I only wish it was acne, but my face won’t ever be any better than it is unless I hide it. When I was really little, before I even started school, I had an accident at home which ended up giving me burn scars all over my face. I hope that’s not a dealbreaker,” They didn’t think it would be, but they didn’t want to shock Michael either if he ever happened to see them without their makeup. As time had gone on, they’d become much less self-conscious about their face; it wasn’t that people were kinder in general, but they’d come to understand that anybody who cared was simply not worth their time.

“That must have hurt,” He frowned, but otherwise didn’t have any other response to it.

“I guess it did. I don’t really remember exactly what happened anymore, though. I think that my mother did it to me, but… It would be rude of me, to feel bitterly towards her for it now. I’d rather just forget, because if I remembered completely, then I wouldn’t be able to forgive her. Don’t you think that it’s always best, to forgive the dead?” They asked softly.

“That depends, really. It depends on how they died. If it was something tragic, then yeah, you should forgive them, because chances are that if it really was all that tragic, being killed was more than enough retribution for what they did. However, if somebody who did horrible things just dies of illness at a ripe old age, why would you let go of your grudges? Unless you believe in Hell, somebody who died that way can never feel enough pain to make up for what they did.”

“She was murdered,” They explained, softly, “I forget a lot of things, about when I was really young. I remember meeting my friends, and I remember when I thought I was going to lose one of them… And I remember every detail about the night I found out about my mother’s death.”

“Why don’t you move into the front seat and tell me about it?” Michael asked, and Chara hesitated, but then undid their seatbelt and climbed into the passenger seat, “They way you say that, it’s like nobody else knows what happened. I bet not even your best friend ever heard the real story, that all he ever knew was… that she was dead. I know you just met me, but hey, I’ll listen, and if you don’t want to, I can arrange it that you’ll never need to see me again.”

“No… I feel like, if I could tell anyone on Earth, I may as well tell you. You’re the type of person who’ll know to keep it a secret, and won’t be scared to hear about it, and won’t launch into some ridiculous fit of worry,” They chuckled a bit, fastening their seatbelt again now that they’d moved forward and sitting with their hands between their knees, “I’d gone away for the weekend, and when I got back, my dad was… really pissed off. He dragged me into his bedroom, and made me look at my mother’s corpse. He even showed me the wound, where he’d stabbed her…”

“Buddy. It’d be pretty cool to see a dead body, but not at age… how old were you, exactly? You said that you were really young. That’s a real dick move, making you see that back then,” He groaned, “But then, I already knew your dad was a shitty human being.”

“Yeah… he handed me the knife. I still have it, actually… I can’t bring myself to get rid of it, the knife which he used to kill my mother. He said that it was my fault, but I think if I’d been there that weekend, he’d have just killed the both of us, so I don’t feel guilty,” They paused, then looked down at their legs, “Is that wrong of me?”

“Hm? I don’t think so!” Michael shook his head, “It doesn’t sound like there’s anything you could have done. He wanted you to blame yourself as a way to control you.”

“I wonder if he’s succeeded,” They muttered, pressing their forehead against the window.

“Well, just the fact that you’ve been with him your whole life and he’s still doing this sort of thing means that, on some level, he has. In his mind, he probably feels like he has complete control, especially if it’s so bad that you can’t even fight back anymore, but,” He clicked his tongue, shaking his head, “You’re still here, aren’t you? You’re alive, and I even got to see you smile. If those two things are true, then well, the truth is that… he has no power over you. People do this sort of thing for two reasons. To satisfy themselves, and to break down their victim. As long as you’re not letting yourself be destroyed, you’ve got the upper hand, because you will escape someday. He knows this and you know this, and at this point it’s just a battle over whether you’ll be able to live your life when that happens.”

“That’s…” Chara trailed off, then smiled a bit, “That’s true. Thank you.”

“I’d offer to kill him for you, but…” He trailed off, “Problem is, that then you’d end up in foster care, and your situation could get even worse.”

“No, it’s all right,” They nodded slowly, then turned to meet his eyes with a slightly off-note grin, “Anyway. If he’s going to die, then I’d want to kill him mys-” They cut themself off, then sighed, shaking their head, “No, no… The feeling of wanting to is different than actually wanting to… I don’t want to kill him. I don’t want to kill anybody. I want him dead, but I don’t… I don’t want to kill him. Not… really.”

“You know,” He paused for a moment, then continued just as quietly, “Maybe the ability to think that way, makes you more of a hero than I could ever hope to be.”


	8. Chapter 8

_”Partaking in worthless garbage fills you with determination.”_  
\----------------------------------------

“Go fish,” Michael muttered, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the fort in Kusumu’s home. After eating, the two had returned straight there; Kusumu’s father had let them in without question despite having never met Michael before, and also knowing that school didn’t officially let out for another twenty minutes, which was rather nice of him.

“...Weren’t we playing poker?” Chara questioned in response, looking at him quizzically, though they never got an answer to their confusion, seeing as they heard the sound of the door and, soon afterwards, footsteps coming up the ladder.

“Sup nerdlords?” Michael asked the minute one of them got into the fort, who just happened to be Philomena. She looked absolutely baffled, but didn’t stop in the doorway, instead crawling right up to Michael and poking his cheek before turning to look at Chara.

“Chara? Did you bring this guy here, or is he some strange figment of my imagination?” She questioned, then started fiddling with one of the pins Michael had on his jacket. A pin of Eli Ayase, from Love Live… “You can’t go calling us nerdlords with this sort of thing on your jacket, you know…”

“Hey! No judging me based on my pins!” He hissed, pulling his jacket away from Philomena and pouting, “Of course you pick up on the anime one, ignoring all my other perfectly respectable badges…”

“This is Michael,” Chara sighed, introducing him where he wouldn’t for himself, “I invited him here because I thought that he would fit in. He rescued me from needing to spend an entire day with the prep squad, and we got to talking.”

“Ehh??” Another voice chimed in before anyone could respond to the introduction. Of course, it was Egg falling over sidewise in his surprise, then pointing a finger accusingly at Michael, “What are you doing here!? First of all, you haven’t answered my texts in months! Second of all, even if you had, I don’t want you embarrassing me around these friends!”

“Looks like you’re embarrassing yourself plenty well enough,” Michael snickered, grinning, but there was some sort of sadness in his eyes, “Look, I didn’t want to get you all wrapped up in my misdeeds, you get me? I was looking out for you, man.”

“That, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re here now, though! I told you that I wanted to make a good impression on these people, I don’t want you to come in here and start beating them u-” He was cut off by Michael leaning down, right in front of his face with a stoic expression on his face.

“Tell me, Egg. Does this look like the face of somebody who has any intention of hurting anybody in this house…?” He questioned simply, his tone an enigmatic mix of condescending and submissive, simultaneously asserting his superiority and acknowledging Egg’s skill.

“...No,” He admitted, turning away and frowning, “But, I-”

“I know, you don’t think very well of me right now, but that’s… it’s fine. I don’t care what you think, I’m going to put myself back into your life. You don’t have to be friends with me, none of you do, but…” He smirked, running a hand back through his hair, “You’re all friends of Chara, and, Egg, if they’re your friends too, then obviously I can trust them. Maybe I can’t be your friend, but I can sure as hell fill the role of one. I’ll fuck up anyone who fucks with you lot, I can promise you that.”

“Are you sure, Chara?” Egg turned to them, looking somewhat concerned, “Do you really think, he’ll fit into our group?”

“Egg,” Chara said simply, gesturing around at the rest of their friends, who had by now all gathered, “Look around at us. Does anybody here really… fit in? The only thing we all have in common, is that we’re outcasts,” They shrugged, tossing down their hand which was composed of all four aces, “And that we care about each other. Besides, I feel like… we have to all be friends. Us seven, it’s like we were meant to end up this way,” They paused, then chuckled a bit and tucked some hair behind their ear, “Ah, that probably sounds really lame…”

“Well, if you think that it’ll work out, then I’m sure it will, Chara,” Amanda turned to them, and grinned, “After all, it’s because of you that we all met each other. You’re the one who brought us all together, anyway.”

“Hm? I wouldn’t say that,” They rested their chin in a fist, “After all, Amanda, it was Allison who first invited you here, right?”

“Well, it was my sister who asked me to come to this fort, but I’d met you a long time before that, Chara!” Amanda explained, still smiling so brightly, “You might not remember it, but I was playing hopscotch one afternoon, and I met you then! I thought you were so cool because you were older than me, and almost taller than my sister! And your face just looked awesome to me, at the time! I thought it must have definitely meant, that you had done something amazing, and gotten hurt while doing it!”

“Well, how disappointing was it to find out that I’m more of a nobody than you thought?” Their words were sad, but Chara’s cheerfulness didn’t seem to disappear.

“It wasn’t! I really just think that… you’re one of the coolest people I’ll ever meet. Is that dumb? Well, if it is, I don’t care, because I still think it’s the truth,” Amanda shrugged, grabbing one of the fort’s pillows and clutching it to her chest.

“Hey,” Egg spoke up again, voice sounding dark, “If… if Michael’s going to be here, then he should know the sort of things I know about all of you. Actually, we should all know about each other. What our home situations are. I want him to understand that,” Egg smiled sweetly now, as he spoke, but the way the light reflected off his glasses made it seem astoundingly sinister, “He’s planning to fall in with a miserable bunch of people! Amanda, why don’t you and Allison start us off, hm?”

“...That’s a good idea, Egg,” Allison sighed, softly, then reached into a bag and pulled out a tupperware container full of cupcakes, setting it down on the floor in front of her and giving a warm smile, “Well, if we’re just going to be telling sob stories, isn’t it the best time to have snacks? I hope you like these cupcakes, they’ve got lemon frosting…”

“Ally and I, we aren’t really that bad off, in comparison with other people,” Amanda started, then grabbed one of her sister’s cupcakes.

“We really aren’t… Mandy’s really popular at school, actually, though she never sees any of her friends outside of classes or cheerleading,” Allison said, gently, petting Amanda’s hair, “She has a lot of shallow friends. They don’t dislike her, but they don’t really like her either. She’s talented enough and kind enough that they won’t hate her, but she also annoys them, and it’s awfully strange how she’ll sometimes wait upwards of an hour for her ride to come after practice…”

“Mm, but Ally’s in a little bit of a bigger predicament, I think. She won’t tell me the juicy details, but apparently people think that she’s creepy, just because she gives people sweets… it isn’t her fault we can’t eat it all ourselves, and she’s cooking or baking basically all the time to distract herself from the fact that she’s never been shown a single scrap of parental affection or acknowledgement! Oh, and all those rumors about her being totally easy, of course.” Amanda added, leaning against Allison. Despite what they were saying, they both continued smiling, Allison with her gentle and natural one, Amanda with her grin.

“Ahah, that’s right! I don’t want to think too hard about my issues, so I just try to keep my mind off of them and show as much kindness to others as possible,” She chuckled, leaning on her hand, “See, Amanda and I? Our parents aren’t bad parents. They don’t hit us, or call us names, or touch us in ways that parents ought not to, really, that’s the truth. Honestly, our parents… ignore us completely. And, maybe that’s the problem,” She shrugged and giggled a little, “And if there’s rumors that I’m easy, I guess it’s because I am. High school boys are desperate enough to make anyone feel loved, if you tell them that’s what it takes. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Mandy ends up the same as me. Ah, Kusumu? How about you go next.”

“Me? Er, okay,” He nodded, then with a smile, just as the others had smiled all throughout their stories, laced his fingers over one knee, which he pulled up near his chest, “Well, my parents are absolutely wonderful people, they’ve never done anything to hurt me. It’s all good, really!” He chuckled a bit, staring down at the floor, “It’s not their fault, if I turned out all wrong. But, it seems that I did anyway. My whole life, I’ve never been able to make a friend that isn’t in this room right now. No… I’ve never even been able to keep a friendly acquaintance. I try and I try, but I always end up messing up somehow. And if that’s not enough, people always expect me to be a certain way, just because of the sort of things that I like. Really, it’s not too tough for me at all. Nobody’s hurt me, and I don’t hate myself, but… if I ever lost, any one of you, I can’t say with certainty that wouldn’t change. Uh… Philomena?”

“Me? Uh, well. My dad’s nice to me, he’s really good. My stepmother… isn’t as good, but that’s no big deal. My mother, and my younger brother, they were killed in an accident when I was in first grade. I couldn’t have done a thing to stop it, it was nobody’s fault, it just… happened. But, I miss them, and when that happened, I realized that maybe I couldn’t have saved them, but there were so many others who died in ways that could be prevented. So I decided I wanted to be like the characters in the books that I read. I wanted to be a hero, I wanted to become courageous and protect everyone I could,” She chuckled a bit, looking around the room, “But, most people don’t want to let themselves be protected. I want to save anyone I can, but… I can’t even tell if I’ve saved anybody at all. I’ve been so focused on this, that I’m a senior in high school and I still have no idea what I want to do with my life… Heh, I threw my life away for a ridiculous pipe dream. Isn’t that funny?”

“Wanting to be a hero… isn’t really a pipe dream,” Michael shrugged in response, smiling, “Ah, but I’m the new arrival, so I guess I shouldn’t go yet? Egg, Chara, and me… that’s who’s left. I think Chara ought to go last, with what I know about them, right? But Egg, nobody really knows what’s up with you, even though you’ve got the smarts to know everything about us. It’s only fair that you let us in on your deal, right?”

“I… Yeah, you’re right,” Egg nodded slowly, sighing, but kept a smile on his face as he crossed his arms, “I have a high IQ. I’m a certified genius, actually, so my parents expected that would mean I’d be a prodigy. They started shoving advanced books at me, and having me watch intelligent television for adults, because apparently being smart means that you’re mentally older than your peers. They wanted to foster in me an unrivalled intelligence, but all I ended up learning was things like how to profile somebody, and my grades are still in the gutter…” He tsked, “My parents used to at least try to be nice about it, but it’s obvious now. I’m a huge disappointment. They got a genius, but I’m sixteen years old now and I still haven’t earned a nobel prize? What a rip-off. Heh… compared to them, the kind of bullies Michael used to beat up for me are nothing at all.”

“Want me to beat up your parents?” Michael asked, cracking his knuckles.

“No, I don’t,” He chuckled, shaking his head, “I want you to tell everyone your story.”

“Me? Ah, well, I’ve always been kind of a violent kid, since I was little. Course I only hurt people who deserve it… I don’t live with either of my parents anymore, I moved in with my grandmother because I got sick of their houses. Every time I was with one, it was horror story after horror story about the other parent. I’m sure it was mostly lies, but the fact that they told those lies made me just hate both of them eventually. I could have killed them both, but they didn’t deserve it. They didn’t deserve to get hurt at all, because the fact that they kept trying to use me to hurt each other… meant that they’d already been hurt enough,” He shrugged, sighing, “Course, I’ve done illegal things, but I’d never do anything that hurts anybody but people who deserve it…”

“But, don’t some things you’ve done hurt nobody but yourself?” Egg questioned, tilting his head to the side.

“Ahaha,” He continued smirking, “But, that’s the thing. Anything I’ve ever done to myself, I absolutely deserve,” He turned his head, “Chara? Would you like me to teach you how to knit?”

“...Huh?” They turned their head to the side and frowned, “What a nonsequitor… I guess, it might be nice, though…”

“It’s not a nonsequitor at all,” He suddenly leaned forward and pulled up their sleeve, running his fingers along weird marks that went midway up their arms, mostly situated on the wrist, “There’s even more on your legs, right? Knitting is something which can occupy your hands in any situation, all right? It’s much better to make something, than to go scratching at your own skin.”

“...I,” Egg started, softly, in awe, “How did you…?”

“That’s something you didn’t pick up on, did you?” Michael questioned, turning to look at him, “Even with your skills. Surely, you knew that after everything Chara’s been through, even if they show you a smile every day, they were self-harming, but there are certain things you can’t figure out just by deduction. Sometimes, you need to have the experience, to pick up on particular movements,” He explained, “Sometimes, you have to have done something yourself to notice it in other people,” He then turned to look Chara in the eyes, “Now then, Chara. Why don’t you tell them? Tell everyone what Egg knows. Tell them what you told me. They’ll understand.”

“I…” Chara mumbled, but then closed their hands into fists and held them against their chest, “I… Am subjected to physical, verbal, and sexual abuse, at my home. When I was in kindergarten, my father murdered my mother and showed me her corpse. This trip I took, just recently, was a miserable experience. I almost died, on that island. I didn’t have any of you there with me, to give me any sort of relief. Maybe that was why he did it. My home is… horrible, and it just keeps getting worse,” They flashed a bitter smile, “I don’t think that I’ll live to see graduation, honestly! But, haha, that’s fine. It’s not like there’s any reason for me to have even made it this far…”

“Well, that’s just not true,” Kusumu muttered, moving closer to grab Chara’s hands in his own, “There’s plenty of reasons for you to make it this far, Chara. When I first met you, you were terrified of being hated by anyone who showed you even a little bit of kindness. You were living out of the lost and found, and you cried all the time, and you had terrible reflexes; if you hadn’t lived this long, those things never would have gotten better, but they have, by so much.”

“Yeah buddy, can’t say I’d take you for a crybaby these days. You’ve been smiling this whole time, even when you had to say all the things that would have made you cry in your life. If you’ve really come that far… that’s why you’ve made it here. So you could become strong, and just you watch,” Michael added, then lifted his arm to flex it a bit, “You’ll graduate, then you’ll never have to see that rotten father of yours again! You really think the six of us wouldn’t make sure of that, Chara?”

They blinked, then looked around the fort at everyone else, who was giving them reassuring smiles and nodding their agreement to Michaels statment. Chara covered the smile that spread through their cheeks once more and nodded minimally before managing to choke out a few more words, “I-I know. You’re all… you’re all such good friends, to me, you’re so important, I just… I’m sorry, this sounds so sappy, but I’m serious… I just… I love you all so much.”

“Yeah, and we love you too, Chara,” Philomena joined in, “I swear on my life, if we have anything to do about it, you’ll get to graduation. We won’t let anybody hurt you again if we can help it. Maybe we can’t do anything about your dad, but anyone else? They won’t lay a finger on you, kid.”

“Mmhm! Maybe Mandy and I aren’t that strong, but we’ll help too,” Allison explained, “As long as we’re all friends, we’ll look out for each other. Even together, we can’t solve all your problems, but we’ve helped, haven’t we?”

Chara nodded.

“Yeah! And the least we can do is make sure it doesn’t get any worse. The only way that could happen is if we didn’t care about you, Chara. That’s what it’s like, okay? Please remember!” Amanda joined in, “It doesn’t really bother us if you hang out with the popular kids, but don’t forget that we’re your real friends. Those people would throw you to the wayside before they’d save your life. I know, I do cheerleading with some of them.”

“I know that,” Chara nodded again, leaning back to lie down on the floor with their hands folded over their stomach, “I know that you care about me more than they ever could, and that you’ll always be here for me. I’m just scared. I know you won’t let anything bad happen to me, but you still have no control over what my father does… that’s what I’m really frightened of. I know he can kill. I know he’s killed before. So, what if he ends up killing me?”

“That’s…” Egg started, frowning, “Well, that’s true. There are variables we haven’t got any control over, and he’s the biggest one.”

“Chara, listen,” Kusumu started, looking them in the eyes, “If you ever fear for your life again, in that house, run. Run as far as you can and don’t ever let him catch you. Come to one of our houses. Any of ours. I know that maybe, we don’t all have the best families, but it’s still better than you getting killed. Go wherever you think you’ll be safest. Come here, or go see Michael, or any of us. We’re all here for you.”

“Okay,” Chara sat up again, then looked at the clock, “I probably have to get going… I wanted to stop at the corner store on my way back so I need a little extra time to walk there. Thank you all, so much,” They smiled softly, holding their hands over their chest once more, “You’re really precious to me.”

And with that, the others said goodbye, and Chara crawled out of the fort, now far too tall to ever possibly stand up in it. They gave a quick farewell to Kusumu’s father before heading out, taking a brisk pace for the walk home. The weather was nice, and they wished that they could stay out just a bit longer, but they were expected home no later than five. Breaking a rule these days was something they could never dare to do. Not since taking off to see Kusumu’s mother that time, many years ago, had resulted in the death of their own mother. They managed not to blame themself for it, taking Egg’s words about it being on some level inevitable, but nonetheless, going against what they were told was still linked to such an awful memory.

It wasn’t too long before they arrived at the corner store. They weren’t really able to get a job with their home situation at the moment, but Kusumu’s father had been kind enough to offer them an allowance, as an honarary additional child. They’ve always been incredibly grateful, and it’s always helped you a lot. They’re still an awfully lanky child, but they don’t look underfed anymore, and they’ve always been able to pay for their makeup now when they run out. Today, however, Chara’s intention isn’t to buy food or makeup.

They stepped into the store and immediately made a beeline for an aisle in the back where they knew the store kept silly trinkets; cheap jewelry, hair accessories, the sort of things that would be stocking stuffers at Christmastime and suffice as acceptable gifts the rest of the year round for people who can’t afford more expensive presents but still want to give _something_. Of course, what they were going to buy from here was something that wouldn’t exactly increase in quality anywhere else. As long as they didn’t get the plasticy ones with yarn for strings, ‘best friends forever’ lockets are generally of a flat quality. Five dollars each… so they could afford seven of them. That’s just perfect.

They wouldn’t give them out right away, their plan was to wait till the moment was right, but they really didn’t want to sleep on this idea as soon as they had it. Words can’t possibly be enough. They had to do something to prove to their friends how much they cared, how grateful they were for their friendship. So they grabbed seven lockets and went up to the counter, only to see an unfamiliar face there instead.

“Oh, is the owner finally taking a break for once? I always see her in here, no matter what day of the week I come in…” They questioned as they put the seven lockets up on the counter and immediately began fishing in their wallet for the money.

“Oh? Old Vivian? I’m surprised you didn’t hear. Two weeks ago, about, she had a stroke,” The guy behind the counter explained, frowning, “She left the store in her will to somebody, but… it’s not really that sensible. She said it was for her favorite customer, when they got old enough to inherit it. So the drug store downtown’s been sending employees up here to maintain the shop while people try and figure out what that means. Her daughter says she must have written it down somewhere, they just have to find it. In the meantime, Walgreens is managing the place. She got along well with the franchiser for the store around here, so… sweet lady.”

“She’s… she’s dead?” Chara questioned, instinctively taking a step back from the counter and lifting a hand to their face, covering their mouth as they turned their gaze to the floor with eyes wide and shocked.

“Yeah. But what’s it matter to you, kid? You’re just some teenager who came in here to buy…” He looked down at the counter and furrowed his eyebrows, “Weird… jewelry?”

“Of course it matters to me!” They snapped, propelling themself forward again to slam a hand down on the counter and look the cashier in the eyes, “I’ve known Vivian for years, since I was a little kid! She was one of the only people who was ever nice to me back then, and I’d consider her a good friend of mine! I came in to buy chocolate bars every weekend, and she was always really kind to me. What gives you the right to assume that I don’t care!? Have you ever seen me, at that Walgreens of yours? Of course not! I’m old enough to get downtown by myself, yeah, but I’m loyal to this store, thanks to Vivian!”

“Whoa, chill out! Sorry kid,” The guy rolled his eyes and started ringing up the necklaces, “Damn. I’d like to go back to Walgreens, this place is full of weirdos…”

“I just found out that somebody who played an important role in my life is dead. Least you could do is show a little sympathy,” Chara scowled, crossing their arms.

“That’s not my job,” He shrugged, “You always this aggressive? Never gonna get a boyfriend like that. Ease up a little, God.”

“Don’t want one,” They frowned, side-eyeing him, “Are you always this rude to customers?”

“Not always. But, look. You’re gonna run into ‘rude’ employees all over the place, aight? Best get used to it now. That’s how people are. I dunno what sort of delusion you’re living in to be giving out BFF necklaces at your age, but you’re gonna have to wake up soon and see that people really aren’t that great.”

“I know that. I just like to value the people who are, and you’re clearly not one of them,” They tossed the money for the lockets down on the counter, then grabbed the pile and stormed out, still fuming the entire walk back to their house from the corner store, though they forced themself to cool down before entering the house. It was best not to snark like that at their father. They knew that the cashier didn’t know about their life, or the extent to which they understood that many people were just plain awful, but they’d spent the last near-decade convincing themself that there were good ones out there too.

Still, maybe that was a bit of an overreaction. Regardless… Vivian was dead. One of the first people in their life who’d ever shown them any amount of kindness, and she was gone. The Earth was short one more good person… and now here they were, standing before the door to their apartment. Their father’s car wasn’t back yet, but he wanted them home before him so he didn’t need to wait. That gave them time to put away anything they didn’t want to get damaged, of course, but…

It also left them in periods of time full of pause and dread, waiting for their household torture to arrive.


	9. Chapter 9

_”I see two lovers standing over a boiling cauldron. Do they both wish for death? If so, their love will end in Hell.”_

 

\----------------  
“Do you want to know what my friends said to me?” Chara whispered, mostly to themself as they held their arms around their shoulders, staring at the far wall, lying on their side.

 

“Which friends?” He asked, sounding... pathetic. That was the only way Chara could describe this boy’s voice. He sounded weak. At least, he did in comparison to his previous behavior and speech, “Our friends, or those freaks? Cause I’m always up for hearing what the weirdos said.”

 

“They said that as long as they cared about me, nothing bad would happen. They said they’d all protect me,” Chara mumbled, sitting up slowly, “But they weren’t there. Not a single one of them was there at prom, nobody. They knew the preps were dragging me there. They knew the preps stuck me with you as a date. But they weren’t there. They weren’t...”

 

“What’s that matter anyway? I know that I certainly wouldn’t consider last night a bad thing. And, if you do,” He leaned closer to them and hissed, “Well, then I guess those friends of yours don’t really care about you anymore.”

 

“You’re lying,” Chara said, but to have any conviction in their voice would be a lie of their own. They were lackluster; for somebody like this to confirm their suspicions wasn’t exactly without fault. This boy was far from trustworthy, yet... they’d already had that thought themself. It was hardly believable. Friends who had always been so good to them, not caring? Abandoning them, breaking a promise?

 

“Am I?” He questioned, then shrugged, “Doesn’t matter anyway. That’s just drama you can stay away from. Maybe you feel bad now, but this is what happens, Chara. Take a date to prom and it’s bound to end in a hotel room, that’s just how things are!” He insisted, putting a hand on their shoulder, which they swatted away, “Come on Chara, I know you told me not to but it isn’t like you struggled-”

 

He was cut off by Chara moving suddenly, pushing him down and sitting on his chest, pressing their hands against his throat and locking eyes with him, “I could kill you. I could kill you right now... you know, I don’t even know your name... They just paired us up because, oh, how dare somebody,” They pressed their weight forward, “Popular,” A bit more, “Go to prom _alone_?”

 

“God!” He shouted as soon as he managed to push Chara off, throwing them to the ground, “What the fuck is your damage!?”

 

“What’s _my_ damage!?” Chara shot back, getting to their feet again, “You’re the asshole that raped me!”

 

“You should be glad somebody even wanted to be with you, God! You wear way too much makeup all the time, and you’ve got that whole weird androgny thing? Are you a boy or a girl? I can’t even tell, you damn hermaphrodite. Your only redeeming feature is that you can’t get pregnant,” He sneered, looming over Chara. They just looked back at him blankly, “And here you go threatening to kill me like some sort of monster!? You’re messed up, Chara Doe!”

 

“Chara... Doe...” They mumbled in a haze, inching away and standing up slowly, tears in their eyes, “That’s my name, isn’t it? Doe... Doe... Just like him...” They let their arms hang limply at their sides and their hair stayed hiding their face as they kept their chin pressed to their own chest, “Everything you just said about me is completely correct. I knew it a long time ago. I can’t believe I let myself forget just how utterly useless I really am. Of course they wouldn’t protect me? Why would they? I’m really not good for anything but to be used and kicked around, huh? That’s... the truth.”

 

“Are you trying to make me feel guilty?” He demanded, taking a step back, intimidated by Chara’s strange and blank tone.

 

“Not at all. In fact, thank you for helping me to remember what my fate is meant to be. How I’m meant to be,” They lifted their head, tilting it to the side and... smiling, “I’m going to use the shower. You’ll run down to the convenience store and buy me cheap clothing. A tee shirt, a pair of shorts, and underwear to replace the ones you tore. Then I’ll go home and see my father, who will probably do violence upon me. Ha... compared to him, you’re honestly... vanilla.”

 

“And what makes you think I’ll just do what you say like that, bitch!?” He questioned in a sharp tone, aggressive, but his body language betrayed him as he took another step backwards.

 

“I know that you will. Because you’ve seen all my scars and you’ve seen the way that I am. You know what I am. I am a monster. And you’re just a measly, pathetic, terrible human. Like every other human. You’re just the worst. But you’ll do this much for me. After all, I could get you expelled. Arrested. Killed. Any number of awful fates, but if you do this, I’ll let you go,” Without waiting for a response, Chara pushed past him and went into the bathroom, closing but not locking the door behind themself. He would need to open the door to give them those clothes, after all.

 

They sighed and dropped the smile from their face as they turned on the water for the shower and stepped in a few seconds later, as soon as the hot water caught up to the showerhead. Sighing, they held their hands to their chest and let the water soak through their hair, slicking it down across their face. The smeared makeup which had been messed already in the previous night’s incident was now being stripped away completely, black runs of mascara and the color of their complexion carrying away and to the tile beneath them, pooling around their feet only a slight bit before washing away down the unclogged drain.

 

This place was nice, this hotel. Far nicer than anywhere else they’d ever been, actually. Kusumu’s house had nothing wrong with it and was cozy of course, but this was the only place Chara had ever stayed which had such splendor and cleanliness to it. Saving money, their father had chosen a cheap local motel for that Hawaii trip. There had been nowhere in Chara’s life so decadent as this, and they hated it greatly now. This hotel room was a horrible place in their memory, and they doubted any other hotel room would wash those stains.

 

Despite their claims, the actions of this boy their age had wrought on them more despair than their father’s objectively worse actions, only in that it proved to them that it wasn’t only that their father was a horrible person. Clearly, they thought, it must have been in their nature to be abused in this fashion, if it was the decision of several people to do this. They were tired, so tired. They slid down the wall of the shower and sighed again, watching the water pool in their crossed arms.

 

Chara was also disappointed in themself for bursting out like that; it was frightening to them, that they could be so intimidating in such a level voice. Where did they learn a skill like that? Smiling while delivering such lines would make them out to be a villain, wouldn’t it? But, that was their only option in that moment. They needed to operate on their ability to strike fear, and their adrenaline fueled them into faking something like this. They felt they could do it again at any time, though. As if saying such threatening things made it easier to keep pretending that they were happy.

 

Of course. That was because, both those things, the smile and the words, were lies. It was easier to tell two lies at once, wasn’t it? Easier because they could distance themself even more, place themself further from the situation and behave as it it was even them who was speaking. Besides, it was half truths. A bubbling of festering ideas that sat deep within them, most prominently, the idea that if they were a monster, then all humans were paltry and pathetic.

 

That was what they were called, anyway. Their entire life, they weren’t a person, but a creature. A monster. Something frightening and deranged, something which could only be feared or hating. They were foolish to think otherwise. Respect is just another form of fear. It was easy enough for their so-called friends to pretend, afraid that Chara might harm them if they did anything other than pity them.

 

That was it, wasn’t it? They had themself convinced now. It was only another moment after this decision that they heard the door open, and the soft thump of a fabric pile dropped on the floor. Fear... was a spectacular tool, to make people do what you want, but they didn’t want to use it. They’d had it used against them plenty of times in the past, after all; but, what were they supposed to do in the apparent realization that any happiness they’d previously had was in fact, an exertion of that power?

 

Well. They got out of the shower and got dressed, then departed the hotel room, leaving behind the prom dress they’d worn. It was from the thrift shop, anyway. Inexpensive. Just as cheap as they were. They felt astoundingly out of place in such a nice place in shorts and a t-shirt, though, until they saw other people wandering the hallways in casual clothes. So they didn’t stand out too terribly much, aside from the facial scarring. It was odd, but comfortable for them to dress like this again.

 

It was uncommon for people to recognize them, while clothed, as having an unusual gender. Assumptions were always made only based on how they were dressed; the chin-length hair, while somewhat femininely fluffed, was still genderless, so the assumptions people made were always based on their fashion sense. After being assumed a girl by so many people for such a long time, it was nice to flip the scale back to something casual. A singular good thing about this nasty, disgusting morning.

 

They had no idea where they were, however, when they left the lobby. The morning air was chilled, but not so much that it gave them goosebumps. However, outside now, they never felt more at the mercy of the world. No makeup. Arms, legs, and neck fully exposed; it was a problem, for them. Not a single one of their lasting scars was now covered up, and that was... rather terrifying, actually.

 

They’d grin and bear it, though. Just like they always did. They had a phone, given to them as a gift by Kusumu’s family... those people sure did an awful lot for them. Was it really all a lie? Chara didn’t want to believe that could be the case, but they also couldn’t think of any reason anybody would genuinely want to be kind to somebody as good for nothing as them. They were spiralling back into their childhood mindset rapidly.

 

However, even if they were distrusting of their friend’s motives, they still needed help, so they sent Michael a text with the name of the hotel, that they were in trouble, and that they needed to be picked up. Within five minutes, a familiar car came squealing up and left tire tracks on the curb. Chara barely hesitated, running up and sliding into shotgun just as soon as the car stopped moving enough for that to be safe.

 

“What happened, Chara!? What were you doing here? Are you okay? What’s the problem? Can you answer me!?” Michael immediately bombarded them with questions and didn’t give them time to answer until that fifth question, already driving away as if they were being chased.

 

“You can drive safely, I don’t think that he’s going to follow me...” Chara mumbled, turning their hands over in their lap, ‘It’s exactly the sort of thing that always happens at prom, apparently...”

 

“Prom...? Wait...” Michael hesitated, slowing to the speed limit then frowning, “Was that this weekend? I could have sworn it was going to be the seventeenth...”

 

“No,” They spoke softly, “That’s the senior prom. I don’t really see how anybody could have gotten those two dates mixed up, so don’t lie to me,” They were practically whispering, “If you could just drop me off at my house, then I’ll be out of your hair for good. I just... really needed to get home. I’m sorry for everything. I’m really sorry. I promise, you’ll never see me again.”

 

“What’s all this? What exactly makes you think that I don’t want to see you again, huh? Really think I spent all that time teaching you to knit just for you to bail on me now?” He questioned, tapping his finger on the steering wheel and stealing a glance over at Chara, “Hey, you’re not smiling. You’re always smiling. That guy... really messed you up, didn’t he? Wanna kill him?”

 

“Already threatened that, but no. I don’t want to kill him,” They shrugged, “I guess I’m just a pacifist. I don’t want to hurt anybody. Not even the people who hurt me... the worst I can bring myself to do to anybody is threaten them.”

 

“Well then, do you want me to kill him for you?” He questioned in an equally curious tone, or perhaps he was even more intrigued at this concept than the first one.

 

“No, Michael. Nobody has to do anything to help me. I’m really sorry, okay? I’m so sorry that I spent all this time making you all be friends with me. I realized something, though. I’m not a person. I’m just a punching bag and a sex toy. That’s all I’ve ever been. All I’ll ever be. I’m not supposed to have friends, but I scared you all into spending time with me. So I’m sorry. Really sorry. Can you please tell that to the others too?” Chara questioned, opening the door as their apartment building was approached and standing up the very second Michael stopped the car, “I know it’s rude, not to apologize myself, but I’m afraid I won’t get the chance to. See, if my father doesn’t kill me as soon as I go inside... I’m going to disappear,” They finished, then quickly slammed the door and ran inside before Michael got the chance to stop them.

 

They knew he was pounding on the door, trying to get them to let him in, but they stayed quiet. Just went and sat in the corner as their father answered the door, and told him off, and made him go away. They weren’t grateful for it, but they were glad that Michael was gone. It was hours before he left the parking lot, sitting there, waiting for them to leave again. When he did leave, it was hesitant, as if somebody had called him away.

 

They could see through the window. They couldn’t leave the window that whole time, while their father punished them. They thought they were going to die, but that would be too kind. Instead, they were left in pain, barely able to move. Their father left, then returned to them and spoke with disdain, “Found these in your room, by the way…” He slipped something into their pocket. The friendship necklaces… “Why don’t you go find these friends of yours, see what they think of you now!? What would they think of you, being this _filthy_?”

 

“...” Chara didn’t respond, they just waited till their father left again, then mustered up all their strength to move. They felt cold, so cold, so they went upstairs. Found the sweater that Michael had helped them knit for themself. It was like the one they’d worn so often as a child… Green, with a yellow stripe. A turtleneck, soft and warm. It was the nicest thing they owned, so they were sure… if they were going to die, this was what they wanted to be buried in.

 

They got back downstairs, though it was more of a topple, and out the door. Made sure they had that knife with them. The gardening knife which their father had used to kill their mother. Somehow, they wanted to hold onto it. Somehow, they wanted to take it with them when they disappeared. They went. They ran, ran as far as they could, and everything hurt. They could barely breathe, but they kept on going until they reached it. The mountain.

 

The mountain where people would disappear. They just kept going and wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop. Didn’t stop until they ran into somebody. Toppled over, then looked up and saw who it was. They recognized him, somehow. Somehow, where had they seen him before?

 

“Damn…” The man shook his head with a sigh, and clicked his tongue, “Someone new finally comes up here, and they’re used goods…”

 

They knew who this was. This was the person they’d seen in the bushes that time, and this was a teacher of theirs. A teacher from quite some time ago… A teacher from elementary school. The year that they met Kusumu, in fact. It shook them, as much as they could still be shaken, that somebody so seemingly kind as him could evidently be… a predator. As if there was nobody, no good humans in the whole world. They were now certain of this.

 

They wanted to die, but they couldn’t let him touch them. No, that wouldn’t do at all. They needed to _disappear_ and that was what this mountain did. They knew that it was an urban myth, probably fueled by this very man, but they didn’t care right now. They needed to move. They forced themself to their feet, and ran again, kept running until they tripped over a root. Tripped, and fell for so much longer than they thought they would. Fell all the way down, down into the deep underground.

 

Words echoed in their ears.

 

You’re just like your mother, well where is she now?   
You’ll end up like her soon, six feet underground,  
Loser.

 

-

 

Michael regretted leaving that parking lot. He knew he shouldn’t have gone, shouldn’t have… abandoned Chara like that, but his grandmother had needed his help with something, and he couldn’t very well refuse her. He returned to the lot as soon as he could, but when he didn’t see Chara by the next morning, he approached the building and knocked on the door. Then again, and one more time until Chara’s father finally opened it.

 

“What did you do with it!?” Before Michael got a chance to say anything, Chara’s dad spoke, angry and bearing down on him, “Where did you take it?”

 

“What are you talking about?” Michael asked, wrinkling his nose, “Where is Chara?”

 

“Don’t act like you don’t know, Mister,” He pointed, scowling, “I saw you stalking out in the parking lot. Just waiting to take it away… That thing…”

 

“I…” Michael stepped backwards, “I didn’t. They’re… missing?” He didn’t wait for another response and just walked away, pulling his phone out and sending a text to all of their other friends, and even to the popular kids that Chara sometimes hung around, “Has anybody see Chara? Please answer ASAP.”

 

But nobody had.


	10. Chapter 10

_“Looks like you fell down… What’s your name?_

_Chara? That’s a nice name._

_My name is Asriel Dreemurr.”_

Chara woke in a daze, hurting all over, in pain, but why? They could see, though, through that hole, into the sky above. Stars. Was it night, or were they just so far underground that the stars would be there anyway, like in a well? They didn’t know, and right now, they didn’t care. They’d answered Asriel’s question in a trance. How did they get here? Well, they must have fallen, that much was clear. They managed to sit up, but couldn’t move their legs. Finally, they saw Asriel, and discovered that he was… What? “...What are you, Asriel Dreemurr?”

“I’m a monster!” He grinned at them, then held a hand out, “Do you need help standing up?”

“I can’t feel my legs…” They mumbled, “So I don’t think I can stand,” They thought about what Asriel had said. A monster? That sounded familiar. Was that what they were too?

“Oh no… I’ll go get my dad!” Asriel turned, “He’s really strong, and he can carry you!” With that, he was gone, running back down the passageway that Chara could see. They looked down and noted that some dead leaves had broken their fall, hence how they survived, though not without damage. Flowers would have been better cushioning. Before they could even finish their analysis, Asriel had returned with a much bigger goat, who froze when he saw them and spoke in shock.

“Why, Asriel, that’s a human!” He was surprised, but not aggressive as he approached them, speaking in a soft voice and holding both paws out, “Hello, young one. Did you fall down here…?”

“I guess that I must have,” They shrugged, looking up at him, “Are you sure that I’m a human?”

“Yes, a human child!” Yet another goat spoke, this one feminine. A mom goat, who also approached Chara with welcoming body language, “Poor dear…” She turned to Asgore, eyes wide, “Do you think that Professor Gaster could find a way to return them to their home without using a monster soul…?”

“...I don’t want to go home,” They spoke, looking down at their own hands covered in colored band-aids. They were small. Ten years old? Somehow they felt as if they ought to be older than this, but they couldn’t place the feeling, and besides, that was ridiculous, “I don’t like other humans,” They couldn’t remember why, but they knew this to be true.

“Why, dear…” Toriel crouched down next to them and looked them over, “You’re dreadfully hurt. Asgore, could you lift them very carefully? No matter what we do next, this child does need some medical attention…”

“Of course,” He nodded, then picked Chara up as gently as he could. He was warm, and his huge paws cradled them. They let their eyelids droop, pain smoothing out into exhaustion as they took comfort. This felt safe, this seemed like… A sort of safety that they’d never known before. Maybe they’d come close to it, but there was always a dread which hung over them, which kept them from happiness. They could remember emotions, but not events, not faces. Was this because they’d entered the land of monsters, or because they’d hit their head? In any case, they preferred it. Vague feelings of misery in a past life… The sense of being different now than they should be… These felt like a relief, like trivial problems.

The home they arrived at was very nice, very cozy, not quite what they expected. This family of monsters had a regality about them, an air of importance and nobility, but this was their house. It made Chara happy, to see that it was normal, and so inviting. Asgore set them down in a very comfy chair, and Toriel took the time to clean them up and bandage their wounds. When she was finished, she stayed on their eye level with a motherly look, “So then, child-”

“Mom, their name is Chara,” Asriel called from the doorway, then stepped out, “Not child. Chara. They told me that when I found them.”

“Alright then,” She chuckled, shaking her head, “Chara. I think that if you hate humans like you say, and since it would be difficult to get you back home… You can stay with us, if you would prefer that.”

“Yeah… I think I’d like that a lot better than going back to humanity,” Chara gave a slow nod and a few stunned blinks, still unsure what to make of this kindness. Kindness… They had known somebody who was exceptionally kind, hadn’t they? Who was that person? Was that person just Toriel, who they were meeting now? It couldn’t be just like that.

“Wonderful, dear, then we’ll have to set you up somewhere to sleep, at least for now,” Toriel stood up and smiled at Asgore, “Honey, we were thinking about moving house soon anyhow, yes? This child may be the perfect excuse to upsize just a little, don’t you think?”

“I know, but where should we go?” Asgore questioned back, “Most of the underground is populous enough as is, they don’t need us moving around and taking over space that I’m sure they already have uses for…”

“Why not near the barrier?” Asriel questioned, stepping forward and grabbing hold of Toriel’s robes, “There’s nothing at all over there, we can make the castle Dad’s always wanted, and build the house inside of it, right? It’s not so scary now that Chara’s here. They’re a human, and they’re not scary, and it isn’t like a human has ever come to us through the barrier…”

“That’s a wonderful point, Asriel,” Toriel pressed her hands… paws… Goat limbs, together, giving a soft and warm smile which seemed to make the entire room feel even more welcoming, “We could absolutely do it there…”

“Hurray, hurray!” Asriel jumped up, then leaned in close to Chara, tail wagging, “Did you hear that? We’ll have a house inside of a castle, and everything will be pretty great! And you’ll have your own bed, and everything! I’m going to be your best friend.”

“Best… friend,” They seemed to remember something, and reached into their pocket, pulling out two friendship necklaces. Both read ‘best friends forever’ on them, rather than being the kind which split apart and only spelled the full word when next to each other. Who wants to wear a necklace that says Be Fri For, or st ends ever? Not Chara, that’s for sure. They held out one of the lockets to Asriel.

“Wow, is this for me?” He took it, grinning as he stared at it, “And yours matches! This way, everybody will know that we’re friends, what a great idea! It’s like you totally knew that we were going to meet each other when we fell down here,” He slipped it on, then leaned forward and hugged Chara, “When we grow up, we can be the rulers of the underground together! I know Mom and Dad will raise you just as good as me! And then, we really can be best friends forever. Like my parents are! But with less smooching. Zero smooching. Smooching’s gross.”

“Yeah,” Chara nodded, and finally grinned back, “I agree.”

\------------------------------

The first time that Chara remembered their past life, it was a year later, after they’d grown accustomed to living with the Dreemurrs. After they’d built and moved into the castle with the house inside, and they had their own bed and everything, and they were best friends with Asriel and that was never going to change. Everything was wonderful. It was a charmed and perfect life, and though the monsters distrusted them at first, they’d soon become a beloved little monarch in training, just like Asriel was.

It seemed too good to be true, like they were going to wake up one day and realize this world was just a show, like they were a fish who thought their whole life that they were in the ocean only to realize there were walls, it was an aquarium, and it wasn’t so great at all. That wake-up call didn’t happen in a way like that. The wake-up call wasn’t about anything wrong with this world, it was something wrong with them.

It was at a store when they first experienced a flash of their past life, when they remembered a storekeeper. A kind and wonderful storekeeper who had vanished and been replaced with somebody who was not so kind, and not wonderful, and anybody here who was great could be replaced like that too, couldn’t they? People die and others take their place. Chara asked that night, if monsters died. Monsters did die, eventually. When they got very old, but Boss Monsters like the Dreemurrs didn’t get old. Monsters like them could only die if they were killed, and the only threat so big to a monster was a human, because a human with intent to kill could fell a monster with a pebble.

Chara wondered if everyone was secretly still afraid of them, or if monsterkind understood that there was no way somebody like them could ever have that intent to kill. Not towards a monster, they thought. Maybe towards a human. Maybe then.

The second time that Chara remembered their past life was when Asgore got sick. When they teamed up with Asriel to try and do something nice for him, only to realize that golden flower tea came in bags, and was not made of actual yellow flowers. Chara and Asriel had scoured the underground for every scrap of yellow vegetation they could find, being sure to pluck only the petals and not the stem or leaves, so the flowers would grow back, and made a tea out of it which left Asgore under the weather for three days. Boss monsters didn’t die easy, they remembered, but they still worried, worried until he was good as new.

They remembered thinking while worried, that they remembered losing a parent once.

They also thought that their human father would not be worth this worry, never in a million years.

Then they remembered him.

Later that night, they started on knitting a sweater for Asgore. It had to be huge, and they never really finished learning to knit from… Who? Who had been teaching them? They couldn’t recall that. They could only remember the flashes, the flashes of awful things, and though they were okay now they couldn’t forget. Mister Dad, that was Asgore. The best Mister Dad to ever walk a surface on this planet, even if it was underground, no Dad among humans could compare.

Even so, miserable memories plagued their soul as they recalled it all. All the terrible moments, and try as they might the good ones slipped away. They didn’t know why they were a child now, because they had been older than this before. They didn’t know why they were alive now, because it felt they should have died many times before.

Boss Monsters didn’t get old and die.

But humans did.

Chara thought, that in a form like this, in a mindset like this, they were no good to anybody at all. The flowers had grown back by now, they realized. They went alone to every single place that they’d found flowers with Asriel to make that tea, and as they went and found them, they swallowed the petals, until they collapsed. Somebody returned them to the Dreemurrs, somebody returned them to their bed, where they lay and couldn’t move for days, where Asriel wouldn’t leave their side, and Toriel and Asgore weren’t much different.

They spoke, soft, and said to Asriel, “If you take my soul, we can make it through the barrier. We can find seven rotten humans, and we can break it. Then we can be rulers of the whole world, and be best friends forever.”

They died in minutes after saying this, and Asriel, in grief, had no choice. Even if he wished to deny the request, he could not, and became a strange and powerful being. A monster with a human soul. That was what it was, after all. Chara was a monster, and Asriel was a monster, and they held the power of a human soul.

Chara knew rotten humans. They could lead Asriel to the rotten humans, but before they could, the creature which was both of them was attacked. Scared, Asriel ran. Chara knew this wouldn’t work, that if they ran then the fire they sustained from the back while escaping would be too much, but Asriel was too afraid to listen, too afraid to fight back, and helplessly Chara watched as Asriel turned to dust in the garden.

Watched?

Shouldn’t they have turned to dust as well?

No, moments before… Moments before, they and Asriel had separated. They were here. A ghost, they supposed, was what they would be called. Could a ghost cry?

This ghost could.

This ghost could wail along as the royals lamented the loss of both their children.

This ghost could sob as they helplessly watched the relationship fall apart.

And this ghost could do nothing but scream into the void as human after human fell down and found themselves dead. Human after human that Chara knew. Human after human whose souls were collected. Human after human who weren’t rotten. Who didn’t deserve it.

Their friends from when they were alive.

Their friends that they could only remember after each one fell down. Who they couldn’t help. Who they couldn’t say goodbye to.

Until them.

\-------------------------------------------------------

“What are you looking for?” Frisk asked following their introduction as they stood in front of the classroom on their first day in this new high school. They’d transferred due to their parents’ move to another country, which wouldn’t allow them to stay enrolled in the private school they’d been in. So they insisted that they could manage public school on their own. The other students stayed silent in confusion. They sighed, then walked in the direction of a particular one, tapping each desk twice as they went till they found the right person, “You. What are you looking for?”

“Me?” Kusumu questioned, pointing at himself and staring back at Frisk, “How… could you tell?”

“I just could,” Frisk explained, then sighed, lowering their voice as the other students decided that watching them talk to Kusumu was not more interesting than anything else they could be doing, “When you can’t see, there’s other things which you can pick up on, and I’m sure that you’re looking for something you’ve lost. So what is it?”

“My best friend,” He answered, crossing his arms and looking away from them, “But I already gave up hope. I was the first one who did… Then Amanda, Philomena, Allison, Egg… Michael is the only friend of theirs who is still holding out. We just… We aren’t going to find them. I already assumed the worst.”

“Oh,” Frisk sounded immensely sad, “I bet you’re going to have a funeral when that last boy gives up looking, aren’t you? But can you really do that if you aren’t certain your friend is dead?”

“Yeah, that was the idea…” He shook his head, “I wouldn’t say it’s likely that they’re alive, anyway. They always talked about being afraid they’d get killed, and some things went seriously wrong just before they disappeared, too. Chara… We all hoped, really, but it’s hard to hold onto a hope like that. Our hopes and dreams that they’re okay… All died.”

“Well, I’m officially declaring myself one of you,” Frisk held out a hand, “I am the seventh friend of Chara, and now you can’t have the funeral until I am certain they’re dead. I’m going to find them one way or another. I won’t believe they’ve died unless I find their body.”

“But if it was murder, you wouldn’t find the body because it would be hidden,” Kusumu protested, “And you’re blind, so how do you expect to look for it anyway?”

“I’ll find a way,” Frisk stood up again,“I always do,” And, to the protest of the teacher, they walked right out of the classroom and out to the parking lot. Once they stepped out into what would be the flow of traffic were class not in session, somebody tapped on their shoulder.

“Oi, you’re that transfer student, right?” Michael questioned, looking them over, “Huh, you remind me of somebody…”

“Could that somebody be named Chara?” They questioned, and he took a step back in surprise.

“How did you know about them?” He asked, and Frisk just shrugged.

“Dumb luck, I suppose,” They answered, “Kusumu in my class seemed like he had lost something, so I asked what it was. Turns out it was a friend. Losing track of a friend is a terrible thing, especially on scales larger than leaving them at a store.”

“...Yeah, that’s right,” Michael nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets, “Everyone else doesn’t think we’re going to find them alive, but I… I mean, it’s hard to keep believing at this point, but I don’t want to let it be that way. I can’t accept that we could have lost them, because Chara was important to all of us, yeah? Problem is, there’s not even a real missing person’s report because their dad says everything’s fine. We can’t file one on our own because they’re a minor who we never saw on a daily basis.”

“That’s fine. No police means we can be vigilante searchers,” Frisk tilted their head to the side, “You guys seem like you hate the police.”

“Well, as a chronic truant, I definitely don’t love them,” Michael shrugged, chuckling a bit, “We? So you want to help?”

“Of course. Helping people is the best thing to do, after all,” Frisk noted, “There’s a theory, anyway. Hurting people can make good things happen fast and bad things happen in the long run, while helping people can make bad things happen right away, but will come back to you later as something much better. I like that theory.”

“That’s a pretty good theory to have. Personally, I subscribe to a theory of hurting people who deserve it, and usually that ends up helping some other people in the process,” He nodded, then grabbed Frisk’s shoulder, gently, “So if you’re gonna help me search, we should take my car. The others canvassed anywhere even vaguely nearby pretty thoroughly. Everyone at some point’s even gone out to the freaky mountain woods. Smells awful up there, but no sign of why. Really gotta hope it’s not a corpse,” He explained, “I haven’t stopped by myself yet, but I guess I will eventually, when I’ve given up on noticing them in a diner somewhere. The woods feel like a last resort.”

\------------------------

“I’m going out to the woods,” Frisk addressed everyone at the lunch table, leaning on it, “On my own. Then I can hear anything that happens instead of listening to Michael ramble on and step on more twigs than plausible.”

“Frisk…” Kusumu sighed, crossing his arms and staring into his ‘mashed potatoes’ which he’d idly shaped into a ball, “Does that mean you’re finally giving up too?”

“No. If I don’t find Chara there, I’m going to keep looking. It isn’t a last resort, it’s an opportunity. I can learn different things about the environment than you all,” They explained, “Your eyes fill in information all the time. Mine, obviously, don’t. I could find something you didn’t. There must be something about those woods, for you all to consider that the last chance to find Chara.”

“...Yeah, I guess so,” Philomena agreed, “Just be careful, okay?”

“Of course,” Frisk nodded.

When they arrived on the side of the mountain, the air was humid and warm. Graduation for the seniors was drawing near, a whole two months after Chara’s disappearance. This high school held graduation much closer to the start of summer vacation than most. The striped shirt they wore had long sleeves, and wasn’t suited to this weather, but they wore it anyway to avoid getting poison ivy and ticks. Same with the long pants. Frisk just stood and listened for a while before they began to walk around.

It wasn’t long before they felt something different under their shoe, something which had no place in nature. Too smooth for a rock, too hard for a twig. They lifted their foot, then reached where it had been and pulled something off the ground. Though it was caked in dirt, they could still trace the embossed letters on it and make out what it was meant to say. Best Friends Forever. They wiped off as much of the dirt as they could, then pulled the locket on over their head and kept moving, feeling the ground with their feet and listening to every sound.

Even so, there were some things which just couldn’t be predicted without sight, and before they knew it, Frisk had tripped on a root. They fell forward onto some brush, but it quickly buckled under their weight. It was only thick enough to hide the hole in the ground, not to support anyone above it for more than half a second. Frisk just let it happen though, remaining calm as they fell down into this pit in the ground.

This must be fate, they thought, and landed on something soft, coming out uninjured. There was somebody else in the room with them, they could feel it.

“If there’s anyone there, please say something.”

“...Hello,” Chara spoke, as if they could be heard.

“Ah,” Frisk nodded, “So you must be the one I was looking for. I knew you were alive.”

“I’m afraid that you’re mistaken.”


End file.
